Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect:Please include the reason why this explanation is incomplete, like this: {{incomplete|reason}}If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic is an illustration of passing time. Each image is relatively meaningless to the viewer by itself; the only way to perceive time is to "wait for it" and see how things evolve. Thus, time is in the viewer's perception, not in each individual frame. It is not entirely clear if the "wait for it" title text references the viewer having to wait for the next frame of the comic, or whether it refers in some way to the content of the comic itself (e.g. the characters waiting for something).

Format

This comic is actually a series of images which play as a rough animation (the image on this page is an animated compilation of the images). The images are in the process of being revealed slowly over the course of time. As of April 29, 2013, the comic has been running for more than 800 hours (over 36 days), and more than 900 frames have been revealed.

For the first 120 hours, a new frame replaced the previous frame every 30 minutes, at :00 and :30 of each hour; the remaining frames have since been revealed every hour, on the hour. The updating is done server-side, with the server redirecting the image link (time.png) to a different image every hour. The source images have very long random-character names, making it virtually impossible to access future frames. There is no apparent way to view past frames on the official XKCD website, and only the current frame is posted there at any given time. Given the unique nature of this comic, several websites have been dedicated to tracking it, and its full run can be viewed at some of these sites (see below).

At 850 hours (36 days 10 hours) the first "scene" of the comic ended at frame 971 with a fade to white, ushering in a second scene from frame 972.

Plot

Scene 1

Megan and Cueball are alone on a sandy beach near the sea. As the story unfolds, Megan and Cueball begin to build a sand castle on the beach. The two continue to expand the castle back from the beach as the scene zooms out. Briefly they have fun launching small objects at the castle with a trebuchet before continuing the build.

Each of Cueball and Megan leave the scene for extended periods at times but always return to continue building. They add what appears to be scaffolding and ladders to expand the castle skyward. All the while, Cueball and Megan wax philosophically about the nature of the sea, the feeding river, the rising tides, and what else lies in the world. In the end, the two decide to go off and explore the world as the sea begins to erode the castle and the scene fades to white.

One other character appears in the comic as of the end of Scene 1: A girl with a beret, similar to Beret Guy, briefly appears to view the castle, and then leaves. She returns in the last couple of frames, as the fade to white completes, dragging something.

Scene 2

Cueball and Megan are walking with bags across a relatively level surface. They stop for a drink. Megan indicates she has never been so far "this way". At frame 997, they sit down and the scene shifts from a front view to a profile view. The terrain of the scene looks notably like the terrain at the bare sitting on looks notably like the terrain in frame 1, albiet from a wider zoom.

There is also a wiki dedicated to this particular comic and the related forum thread, at xkcd-time.wikia.com/. There is also a physics simulation of the trebuchet written in JavaScript/HTML5, available at thred.github.io/xkcd-time-catapult/. The code is hosted on GitHub, too. There is an Android app which notifies users when a new image is posted and lets them view the image from within the app, available on Google Play. The code for the app is hosted on GitHub and encourages contribution of new features or enhancements. An hourly updated graph of the rising water level is available at [1]

Linux users can do the following to create an automatically-updating window of the comic in their workspace: install feh then

+111:30 [Cueball joins Megan at the trebuchet and launches one himself. They alternate launching projectiles.]

+114:30 [Cueball launches an object straight up into the air.]

+115:30 [They run as the object falls back down. Cueball leaves a few frames later, Megan stays and works on building a large mound in the destroyed center of the castle.]

+186:00 [Cueball returns, Megan is working on top of a large mound she's built, as she turns around and stands up to see Cueball, she slips down the side of the mound. Cueball rushes in and helps her rebuild it and flatten out the top.]

Cueball: There must be other rivers. Maybe something is wrong with them.

+734:00

Megan: I like our castle.

+735:00

Cueball: I think it's going to go away.

+736:00

Megan: Yeah.

+738:00

Megan: Do you think there are other rivers?

Cueball: Something is adding water to the sea.

+739:00

Megan: Does it have to be water? Maybe something is adding more land somewhere. And it's making the sea overflow.

+740:00

Cueball: Or maybe it's just raining somewhere. We have no idea what's out there.

+741:00

Megan: Yeah.

+743:00

Megan: Want to find out?

Cueball: Yes.

+744:00

Megan: I'll get some bags.

+760:00

Megan: bye.

+761:00 [Megan exits.]

+775:00 [The entire scene begins a slow fade to white. The 'tide' continues to rise and the castle on the right continues to be subsumed.]

+830:00 [Beret Girl drops in for one frame. The fade and tide continue.]

+847:00 [Beret Girl drops in again, dragging something. The fade and tide continue.] (In fact, this detail was not visible without an aid to undo the fade.)

+850:00 [The entire scene is white.]

Scene 2

+851:00 [New scene: ground.]

+852:00 [Megan and Cueball walking with bags.]

+858:00 [Cueball pauses and Megan looks back at him.]

+864:00 [Still walking.]

Cueball: Have you ever been this far?

Megan: Not this way.

+867:00 [Megan and Cueball stop and have a drink from flasks in their bags.]

+870:00 [Megan continues walking.]

+871:00 [Cueball continues walking.]

Frame by Frame Breakdown

Below is the list of all the frames of the comic, in the order that they were revealed. The given times denote the time since the comic was initially released on midnight, March 25, 2013, Eastern Daylight Savings Time (UTC - 0400).

When uploading different versions of the image, use the naming convention time[iterationNumber].png. We'll compile all the images into one and display them as per Traffic Lights. Davidy²²[talk] 05:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so the comic appears to be switching between two states here: between this and this. If nothing new happens, I'll get to clipping the comics together. Davidy²²[talk] 05:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoop, nope, this just came up. Is there more to come? Davidy²²[talk] 05:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so a new one is posted every half-hour. Whoopee. Davidy²²[talk] 06:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

72.21.198.66 05:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)It could be a reference to the old proverb " time and tide wait for none" Cueball and the girl could be waiting for the tide in the beach! (Just a guess)72.21.198.66 05:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

This could be a cinematic custom to change scenes or to show the passage of time: fade to black (white) on Act I, come up on Act II. Get some popcorn during the intermission. Gerry (talk) 11:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Perhaps there is a way to hack the URL to view future images. 199.30.248.121 05:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I would also like to add that knowing randall, these are not the only images. For all we know, the image will still be changing in 5 years while a tree grows in front of them. My point is: Are the URLs hackable, or did he encrypt them? 199.30.248.121 05:33, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Likely there is a way to hack the URLs; they look like some sort of hash, probably a hashed timestamp. Of course, he could easily have added some salt to the hash, making it significantly *harder* to hack. But they're strings of a specific length, so it should be pretty easy to bruteforce it, fetch all the images, and then (maybe) reverse-engineer the sequence. *That* all depends on how many of them there are. 76.90.249.178 05:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Good god, do you see how many digits are *in* that hash? The sun'll have burned out by the time we've tested every possible combination of digits. Davidy²²[talk] 05:47, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The URLs are 64 hex characters. If he doesnt want us to find these pictures ahead of time, he would have made them completely random data, not a hash of anything. There are 16 possibilites for hex characters so 16^64 combinations or 1.7x10^308 combinations. If we made a supercomputer to try a billion links per second, and if there are 10,000 images total, it would take 4×10^277 × 13.77 billion years, which is a number with 277 zeros times the age of the universe to find just the first additional image. The sun will expand into a red giant and engulf the earth or at least come close enough to boil off all the water in the oceans in a mere 5.4 billion years, less than even one additional age of the universe. It will even be after the last star to ever be born has burned out, and all life in the universe has died before we could find even one. 65.50.74.245 19:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems that the image is updated every 1/2 hour. 152.23.97.150 06:17, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Given that the images switch back and forth between other images already seen, and that the comic should be viewable in the future, it seems unlikely that it's any thing like a simple sha256 of part of the timestamp. I think it's more likely a function of half-hours and minutes (assuming we continue to get a new possible image every half-hour). 99.153.248.206 06:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The images do cycle, yes. But for some reason I have never seen the img where Megan is looking behind her. Also wouldn't it be difficult to show a sequential story (like the rising tide) if the previous images keep cycling ?

Hash appears to be SHA-256. I tried some obvious hashes ("1", "11901", "1190_1", "1190.1") to no avail. Maybe this is HMAC-SHA256? Also, I would suggest trying Unix timestamps. 131.156.236.149 06:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

It's entirely possible that the "hash" is actually randomly generated. Just a thought. 129.21.119.153 07:03, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding sha256. Its most likely some hash of a timestamp, but if he doesnt wants us to crack it, he would have prefixes a password.. sha256('secretcode17:30'). Im just saying, if he doesnt wants us to crack it, we most likely cant.
I've tested all unixtimestamps from 1300000000 to 1364390334. Also "00:00" to "23:59", with and without the colon and a load of other formats. 77.243.128.133 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Alright, this is probably not going to work, but I'm trying to exploit Randall's awesomeness here. Maybe he decided to take the time-stamps from the user? I don't know if that's even possible... That would then allow people in different time zones to obtain different images simultaneously. (What's the corollary of Godwin's law for a bunch of math-and-science nerds and relativity? Is there one?) Clicking the img src url on the comic's html page, give me this: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/time/752687b61523144c61736cd89f8c153dc41e19128f72d78d44947ff800f057fa.png : Never mind.. apparently others see the same image too.

Could he be doing this live? Monitoring the discussion on the net? Collaborative, crowdsourced comic-ing? Reminds me of those you-decide-what-the-character-does-next-and-flip-to-appropriate-page parallel plot novels.

I have uploaded all the different images onto the wiki, in the order that they were revealed. To avoid needless duplication of effort, I'll put them up in the explanation page. Davidy²²[talk] 07:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

It just went back to the second image... 220.224.246.97 07:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

No..I checked the random string. They're exactly the same. In fact, now it's gone back to the second image. Again. 220.224.246.97 08:07, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Just found this JavaScript code embedded in the comic HTML source (Update: Reformatted to prevent eye-bleeding): http://pastebin.com/4vNJH53Z

I'm no programmer but this looks important to me...

Moved it to pastebin, so it doesn't clutter the page so much. 81.23.24.51 14:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't really help. The script basically changes the image when something happens (probably some time passes, although it's possible there is more hidden there). WHAT image then appears is not directed by the script, but by the site. Specifically, the image displayed as first is taken from http://c0.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/time, while the script asks for http://c0.xkcd.com/stream/comic/time?method=EventSource&r=(somenumber) ... which is, if you get correct "r", probably some json containing the image url. So, even if you hack the script, you will not get all possible urls. -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:17, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

... actually, given that the script part doesn't seem to do anything just now, it's even possible it's for later (ie, starts producing images when the correct time come). Or maybe there is a bug somewhere in the code :-). -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. Why hasn't anyone posted this before? Could "location.hash" possibly have anything to do with the method used to generate the image hash key? Also, why is this code so difficult to follow (Obfuscation?)? So many questions... Sorry if this is just a huge waste of Time.

location is the URI of the page. location.hash is the part of the uri after the # character. If you go to https://xkcd.com/1190/#verbose, you'll see some debugging output in your browser's debugging console (Firefox: Web Console or Firebug, Chrome: Development Tools). But nothing to decode the algorithm... :-( --83.243.48.2 10:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what's doing it, but there's definitely some script (probably this script) that's refreshing the image automatically. I left the comic open for an hour or so and noticed the image had changed. I refreshed with #verbose in Chrome right before the 30 minute mark and got the following in the console.

The script seems to poll the server every minute or two. It's different from before, where the image server itself redirected to the correct image. The auto refresh was probably always intended, but not quite ready when the comic went live. It may have turned out to be necessary too, so the image server doesn't have to do all the work. 129.21.119.153 14:45, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me or or did Randall manage to make all of us perform a Denial of Service on xkcd.com, and explainxkcd.com ? xkcd.com seems much slower, and I keep getting "500 Internal server error" when accessing this site (explainxkcd.com). I guess that's the effect of having everybody hit F5 every few minutes :) 193.239.192.194 11:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Earlier today, the server handled all the image redirections. The script you see above went through several mutations (currently at #8), with each mutation it seems that Randall is adding more servers and trying to split the load between them. This is basically how a bot-net works - we all run code written by some evil genius, and he's changing the code as time passes to serve some hidden purpose.
79.180.173.88 15:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

If he is using us as a botnet, then maybe the next comic will be something alluding to that.

When I saw this comic last night and that there was no explanation up, I thought to myself "How zen." I figured that Randall was going through a calm streak before throwing us the utterly ridiculous April 1st comic. Did it come early, or does he have something even bigger planned for us? 76.106.251.87 07:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, did you miss the bit where this comic updates every 30 minutes and all the server error messages being caused by the massive traffic to both the wiki and the main xkcd website? Davidy²²[talk] 07:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, when I said "last night" and "no explanation", I implied that I wasn't aware of that at the time, which is why I thought what I did. Of course, it is now "now" and there is an explanation, so that should answer your question. Also, since it's not April 1st, and Randall has consistently released something major on that day, the jury is still out, leaving my question quite open (though I was really only asking for opinions). 76.106.251.87 07:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

wanted to add an image to the list above, but didn't know at what timestamp to add it, got 69085b480cb82911b19fe8f114909756989eed89b0d227db0f59c1843de7ba24.png at 2013-03-26 09:47 CET (UTC+0100)
/Puggan

The hours denote the time since the initial release of the comic. The page is still a work in progress, we're going to bring that all into one image file soon. Davidy²²[talk] 09:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This site should seriously consider cloudflare, it's perfect at times like this and takes minutes to set up. I run all my sites through it and it saves a lot of page huts and bandwidth.
123.3.136.228Evan Pyle

Or at least make the main page a static page that refreshes every so often. I'm guessing that most of the traffic is going to the front page with not as much traffic to the actual comic page Odysseus654 (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Some of the images on the wiki (looks like time38.png through time48.png) are slightly different than what is on the main site. The lines are slightly thicker, as though someone did them based on screen captures.
Royce (talk) 14:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, at least we have the hashes so they can be re-retrieved, so nothing is really lost, right? Should we add links to the original? Odysseus654 (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I uploaded two of the "thicker" images and one of the "regular" ones, and I did the same thing for all of them: right-click->save-as. Given that the "thick" ones are all clustered together, I think the files on the xkcd site changed. Druid816 (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for the water level to drop precipitously... and then for red spiders to run over everything Odysseus654 (talk) 04:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, strip 1191 is up so I assumed it was over. I guess it's not. Until April's Fools maybe? 189.59.175.92 04:32, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It is not over -- the image is still updating, at least it did for me Spongebog (talk)

Yes, it's not over. Last frame shows just a minimal movement of Cueball's head, but no doubt it's still ongoing. 189.59.175.92 04:49, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Given the fact the strips for the last 2 weeks have been comparatively simple, I expect Randall has been planning this for at least that long. 101.98.156.239 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Considering the common theme with "today's" strip, anyone wanna guess that he's sending us a hex-encoded file over a really slow modem link, slated to complete April 1? Anyone wanna run "magic" over the hashes and see if they come up with a compression codec or something? Odysseus654 (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I liked this idea and crunched the hex data for 00:00 to 51:00 into a binary file (http://filebin.ca/bcGyfUvdgBi). Can't see anything resembling a file header, but that doesn't really say much. If this is compressed header-less data there wouldn't likely be any easily discernible patterns. Haven't really tried running the data through anything, zlib was one that came to mind but haven't tried it.

194.114.62.72 I'm pretty shure it's not the seaside, but a lake - the water level is not changing at all.

Its probably going to loop back on itself, eventually, and repeat this way forever. 113.160.224.209 07:12, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

For those wondering about the Javascript behind this: I posted my analysis of the Javascript on the xkcd forums, and further de-obfuscated and annotated the code over on GitHub. Here's a quick summary though: it holds open a connection to xkcd's servers and listens for instructions and follows them. Those instructions are either "load a new image" or "reload the page". So, you don't have to mash F5, it will automatically update the image when they're available. We have no way to control how fast the images come or when they do, and it's quite possible for them to update forever. --Fiveofoh (talk) 06:41, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as we have seen, there is a destroyed tower and they are rebuilding it

The next strip, following 1190 (or 09/11), mentions war against countries with large oil reserves but low military capacity. 143.107.105.14 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I feel like that's kind of a stretch, I'm pretty sure it's just a story about a day at the beach.

If a new strip goes up every 30 minutes our time, and if each strip comprises of, let's say for the sake of simplicity, one minute in their time; to build the sand castle [frames 24-117 = 93 frames] so far it's taken almost 2 days our time, which would be about an hour and a half their time if each frame is a minute. Using my scale, an hour our time is 2 minutes their time, a day is 48 minutes, and our month is their 24 hour day. If we assume Randall plans to give us a 24 hour period from that world's time, and we use the minute-per-frame rate I made up, than we'd probably be looking at a month of images our time. I guess we'll just have to see how long he's got it planned to go on. -boB

Has it ended? All that's left is the sandcastle, and there doesn't seem to have been anything else changed on it for a few hours.

It's zooming out! When look at the gifs showing the frames in succession, the last 3 show the castle getting slightly smaller each time!

It's true! The most recent also shows the edge of another castle, leading me to believe it's part of some kind of sand castle contest, probably including some of xkcd's other recurring characters!

Weird, now it's not showing that, Randall must have put something up too soon.

A controllable version of the same comic is available at http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/ - slow/fast movement, pause, control back and forth. It also has the image # on the top left. Auto updating. 59.182.173.88 20:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you add on-screen buttons, so it's usable on phones and tablets without hardware keyboard? 81.23.24.48 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Well now we're back to that picture as the present frame. Racerdude09 (talk) 03:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Is someone gonna update the transcript to note them building a sandcastle, as well as the dialogue so far (consisting of Megan and Cueball saying goodbye to each other at No. 52)?--69.119.250.251 00:38, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Anyone else think this is going to be related to Wed's cartoon? I'm half-expecting Black Hat to show up from the future, with advanced weaponry, to take oil from the sandcastle of the past. 173.180.60.43 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Guys, i think we might have lost a few frames in between, no? When did he upload the first image? like, the exakt time... knowing this we could calculate the amount of images there should be and compare to what we have... Caranhyas (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The four comics from 89:00 to 90:30 (most recent so far) look the same to me, but the PNG files have different CRCs for the image data blocks, though the metadata in the PNG files are all the same. I wonder if there might be something subtle hidden in the images, or the way they're compressed. 24.160.133.3 22:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a very minor difference in the water level on those images, even though the water level has been static in most of the other images. 129.21.63.210 02:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the title text is a reference to anything except for... wait for it... THE MONGOLS ;-) 81.23.24.34 23:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Unless the 99:30 image was misnamed, it's not included in the list of images. Does anyone know where this frame went? Bob 14:18, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Is that rain in two recent panels? Larry (talk) 14:21, 29 March 2013 (UTC)r

Can someone identify for sure what Cueball is doing in 105:00? His arms seems to be crossed, and his holding something in his hand. mem (talk) 14:30, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks to me like he is shivering, which would allude to a cool down common with rain storms? Jeremy1026 (talk) 14:51 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks to me like he's brushing sand off himself; see the shower around him similar to her hair at 10:00? 70.178.167.60 03:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Megan just wheeled in a trebuchet! This is going to be fun! 69.246.10.71 16:34, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Now she's launching a rock. I wonder which tower it might hit. March 2013, at 17:08. Flew over the first two and might impact far right tower if it continues. 17:48

I think this is all an elaborate 'joke' which will keep running until Monday - April Fools' Day Joncaves (talk) 17:17, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Re explanation of hour 110:00. My first thought was "How can a person whose face is an empty ovoid look upset?". However, looking at the image again I can see how it does. Respects to Randall. Possibly an April Fool, but I will be even more impressed if it runs beyond Monday. I'm waiting for the tide to come in. jasq 79.123.80.87 23:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The "wait" folder there contains hashes that weren't found in the database and might or might not someday be discovered. They are probably there *because* someone was looking up hashes to see if they were common words. 99.153.248.206 23:17, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

To review, the first two are:
8eb156cce408df8bb83528382d6a2aa2ce6c74f3c573fd12b058cd1c56420672
1e349a579b5f9b5ed487ddf7e88244b70330941ddedac9c6abf6ed2e3f589b97
Googled the third one, but it only shows up on xkcd discussion forums :(
Hashed some of the hashes, but didn't see the result in the list, so it dosen't look like a hash chain.
Someone should google all the other hashes, and someone else should figure out what the guy in the "wait" directory (presuming it wasn't Randall) was hashing. --Venal dwarf (talk) 21:37, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Comparing all the filenames to the hashes on that page, I found a total of four that overlap. The first two, as mentioned. But also one from the middle of day 1, and one from the end of day 1.

There is a fifth one also, from 01:30 - e25be2dd49fe9f33c3543cdf640b67e0f2146cc576db5da007a135a278e524ee.png

I converted all 1153 hashes in the file to lower case and did a wget on them but it did not turn up any files from the future. Bugstomper (talk) 05:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Is Randall training us like Pavlov's dogs - every 30 minutes we are compelled to refresh the web-page? Joncaves (talk) 01:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone have an opinion on how we should continue naming the saved timeNN.png files if the updates do not continue on the half hour?
Right now the link for the skipped update 242 got renamed to the nonexistent time242NA.png and the next update's link is time242.png. But what do we do if the updates are changing to once per hour? By the way it does look like the next half-hour update has been skipped too. -- Bugstomper (talk) 05:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It does seem to have gone hourly as of midnight EDT. I stuck in "NA" as a placeholder since I wasn't sure what to do with the files, and wanted to make it clear that the half-hour updates were skipped in case it goes back or changes in some other way. Maybe start naming them by the time, instead of sequentially, e.g. "012200.png". If the pattern holds, the "no update" lines can be removed. (Or both might make more sense, like "time243-012200.png".) 69.243.159.96 06:08, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm partial to timestamping filenames for stuff like this. I have this zsh line running right now:

(I was wishing for a convenient way to use the server-side timestamps, 'till i noticed that it's always 2013-04-12 Fri 09:05'38—which i'm guessing is the script's mtime.) —98.83.126.232 08:28, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Strange: As far as I know http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/time.png always redirects to the current frame. But if you visit the current one (133:00) at http://xkcd.com/1190/ and check the displayed image, it says 'c6976fbb244af4fc2286ffe3ac2cf78d408c1f610ecd71e18b4a677a048f084d.png' while time.png redirects to '1d9ce7199935b1b629d6b8744e62c7700a3780357b2dc74bb70471db616ddadb.png'. If you take a md5 of both images, they appear to be the same.

I was confused by this as well, I'm grabbing the images myself via time.png and got the 1d9ce7 hash. How will these duplicates be displayed in the table?Lockyy (talk) 17:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing some strange stuff now. I have a script that uses wget of time.png to get the redirected hash png like Lockyy is doing. And I can verify that when you go to the 1190 page in the browser you get a different hash. But the previous hour and this hour, unlike the ones before it, the two hash pngs are different. And when I refresh the screen in my browser at the 1190 page, first I see the image I get from time.png, then the image refreshes with the other one. I'm not sure what this means or what we are supposed to do with it. I added the time.png hashes to the table for the last two hours but we probably need a way of indicating the difference. -- Bugstomper (talk) 20:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

This latest hourly update did the same thing. If you are fast enough you can even get the first image in your browser by right click view image before it changes to the second one. I edited in something that shows that. It probably could stand some reformatting by someone with better graphic design sense, but at least right now all the information has been captured. - Bugstomper (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking at it some more, I see that wget of the page at xkcd.com/1190/ gets you an img link to time.png and then there is the javascript that must after some delay get the different hash url image. That means that we had better be sure that we do not miss any manual checks of hourly updates because the scripts will never find that second image unless someone has a way of getting a script that runs the javascript as if it was a browser. As long as someone posts the hash of the image from the browser every hour, I can ensure that we have the hashes the scripts can get because I have a cron job checking for those updates every 15 minutes. -- Bugstomper (talk) 21:49, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

And with the update for day 06/18:00 it appears to be back to normal, one consistent image per update -- Bugstomper (talk) 22:22, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Just if somebody else wants this, i hacked a little bash script to download all images to the current listed here. It skips already downloaded images so it can be reused later when more images are here.

This is awesome. I love the internet. --Jeff (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I've offered up own explanation. The obvious metaphor is how time continues to flow and things change when you’re not watching. And how this could be a conceptual art project that could continue the rest of our lives... 72.183.97.36 19:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC) Lawrence Person

This comics may not really continue forever unless Randall will put some sort of repetition into it. May not be simple loop but something more sophisticated, but still, images shown up to now doesn't show any kind of repetition yet. -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:28, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

anyone else notice the water is slowly rising? not unlike a tide (depending on the time scaling implemented? perhaps a flooding river (as might correspond to the mention of a river)? 70.192.210.128 18:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I checked your claim that the water is rising, and I agree. Good catch! I measure the rate at about 1 pixel per 25 frames starting at about 100 hours. Though a more careful look could surely refine that estimate. 207.67.82.250 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I measured the water level with a ruler. The water will take another 20 days before reaching the sand castle if rising at a constant rate. 192.155.85.119 01:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Oddly this contradicts the text, which says that the river is going down: "Any idea where the river is now?", Cueball replies "Still pretty far out. It actually retreated a little this week." --AH

This comic has been running and updating so long I think perhaps it is a sand castle creation/destruction program that autonomously lets the two indefinitely build, destroy and rebuild new sand castles all the time… 80.101.210.21 09:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe. We don't have enough data to say that for sure yet. We just need to "wait for it". 93.73.186.104 10:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think numbers in "As of this writing, it is still updated after more than XXX hours - even after Y new, different comics were posted on the front page" at the top of the page should be calculated using {{#expr}}. I changed it for number of comics, but I have no idea how to calculate number of hours since it was posted.DiEvAl (talk) 11:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

When Megan coughed and Cueball asked if she was okay, did anyone else think of http://xkcd.com/931/ Lanes? Cueball explains that cancer treatment results are not known until much later, "and often the first sign is a cough or a bone pain. So you spend the next five or ten years trying not to worry . . . ." ~~wrybred

I don't want to be a downer but this is just my interpretation thus far. I hope it is a happier theme but if you are correct wrybred, my further explanation would be the following... I think that building sandcastles is an analogy for living their life. Going for a swim in the body of water and the cough could represent the start of the cancer or possibly some time where they had to go out and "wade" in the possibilities of what cancer could mean. Time passes and Cueball says "I don't think we can build it much taller than this. It's been fun, though" which represents that they believe they have done as well as they can with the lives they have been given. They comment on the river retreating even though we the audience observe a body of water on the right hand side rising could represent how we can be fooled into believing things are going alright when in reality they are not. The reference to not understanding what the river is doing also fits this explanation well as someone with cancer may occasionally feel confused about their illness. Presently while I write this they are possibly preparing for a flood which represents the return of the cancer. If I were to guess what is next I might guess that they will watch as the flood comes in and destroys some of what they built but it is better than not having made the sandcastle in the first place. I could be way off, but Randall has given us a lot of TIME to think about what this is all about and your mind wanders. I also would note that this may not be about a particular cancer story, just any cancer story. Nhoel (talk) 13:51, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Could Cueball and Megan be building a European city, as it evolved, was damaged and remodelled where 1 day of strips is 100 years? Maybe Cueball is curretly remodelling Notre Dame de Paris or Westminster??? If so, it should get interesting around day 17 129.238.237.96 17:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)rbnm

#!/bin/bash
# Assumes you have a complete set of numbered PNG images in a
# directory called "./images". (See the script above) Makes a
# directory called "./cropped" containing N images that are 1 pixel
# wide by 395 pixels tall, each of which contains the second to last
# column of one of the input images. Finally, concatenates all those
# images into montage.png, which will be Nx395 pixels and can be read
# as a graph of water depth over time.
mkdir -p cropped
rm cropped/*.png
for i in images/*.png
do
f=`basename $i .png`
convert -crop 1x395+550+0 $i cropped/${f}_cropped.png
echo $f
done
montage cropped/*.png -geometry 1x395+0+0 -tile x1 montage.png
echo Wrote result to montage.png

Actually 77.100.193.92 did bring it up, which is why I believe they're building a large trebuchet. Bdemirci (talk) 22:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Bdemirici & 77.100.193.92, sorry for the duplicatation. Now which came first... the coment or or the comic, 77...'s reference came before the center structure gained its malformed parapets. Drifter 66.42.134.195 10:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Whoa -- big change in scale, zoom in on Megan holding a mini trebuchet at about 5 pm central time Friday the 5th.--205.208.92.136 22:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)--~~

A tiny trebuchet for use on the tiny turrets? Megan is kinda awesome. --Druid816 (talk) 22:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I think she should "outgrow these toys and focus on something practical" ;-) DiEvAl (talk) 22:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like they are re-enacting the trebuchet incident on the mini-castle. AH --108.244.73.186 23:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Meta-physical time again: "I don't understand what the sea is doing" - wasn't it a river earlier? Is it a different sea? The river of time maybe? Where is Randall leading us? Joncaves (talk) 03:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's obvious. They're not on a beach. They're on a recently exposed portion of the river bed. In time the river will come back and engulf the whole area. 64.121.163.170 10:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I have redownloaded the 199:00 image based upon the hash here and it does still say "river", so Randall hasn't adjusted the "past" to fit the "present"... Mark Hurd (talk) 05:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that they are not on the beach. They are on some sort of a boat covered with sand. First they were in the river, and now they reached the sea. DiEvAl (talk) 14:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

So if they are on a boat then it isn't the river/sea that is rising it is the boat that is sinking (or having more weight added to it). Joncaves (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious to me. They're on a beach with a river running through it. Yes, beaches sometimes have rivers in them. And also, rivers that run through beaches tend to be very unstable and to move their bed all the time, because of the fact that it's running water through loose sand. That's why they talk about the river moving. 80.212.115.55 08:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Just so it doesn't get lost, these are the last 2 hashes I've seen: e3e8169439be717a5661dba80cca623330516d87749f5c5bd83d4a4aae19b89a.png, a2c0f3ed4be680f5b794f0137a55af8704598a2105e1eff5fce750b07800c19b.png

Are they building a giant trebuchet? Another zoom out maybe? Bdemirci (talk) 05:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I love how Randall is reacting to the discussion here. Is it a sea? Or a river? Let's have Cueball drink from it to clarify ;) Blue Charizard (talk) 09:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It could be brackish water ... and I have seen some fresh water rivers I definitely wouldn't want to drink from Joncaves (talk) 15:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

So this tells us 3 things:

1) It's likely a sea.

2) This comic, or at least a script (not in a programming sense) for it was very likely made by a human. So it's not randomly generated. We already knew this, but now it's confirmed once again.

3) Randall is still working on this comic, or at least he was some time after he started releasing it.

I think by tasting the water Cueball was preparing himself for the inevitable - the water is going to continue to rise and nothing they can do will stop it: they are going to drown. This strip is about the slow, inextirpable, approach of Death - and this isn't the Death from a Terry Pratchett novel. Joncaves (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Between the 376th and the 81st strip it can be noted how much the water has rised. And I've noted how there's no wind in the beach (river's mouth?), the flags don't move and the sea has no waves. Don't know if there's a meaning there. --Yinosanchez (talk) 21:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you shouldn't compare it to frames before about 220, because that's where zoom changed last time. Also it looks like it will reach the castle in a day and a half from now.DiEvAl (talk) 22:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The likely implication of the lack waves etc is that they are in an estuarine environment, where the rising tide may not have a bore at all. This might explain a few things, like the reference to a river, the strange behaviour of the sea, and perhaps might explain Cueball tasting the water (to see if he could determine the saltwater content). Eeijevs (talk) 22:34, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Megan's reaction to getting the water in her mouth (cough, pffthh) and Cueball's are pretty similar ... call me crazy but I think there's something weird about the water beyond its salt content ... --76.84.59.83 04:20, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

And 2 hours after I said that, Megan built something right next to the water. I wonder if this was a coincidence... DiEvAl (talk) 09:34, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

It is, of course, a damm to buy them some time. :-) 84.180.241.162 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It wouldn't work as a dam in a 3D universe. It would have to extend infinitely in z to act as a dam. Then again, there's also no good way to support a platform with two posts. 206.173.46.67 20:24, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please move the list of images and their hashes to another page? Randal is showing no signs that the images will stop anytime soon. 184.5.152.192 22:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand the sentiment, and considered at least commenting out the future tables, but this page does not need to be changed when the latest frames are uploaded, only when the hashes are added, and those of us still keeping the live XKCD page open do find it easier to just open the last few frames missed when looking away or sleeping.

I do wonder if the wall of text is worth reducing by actually making the hashes a link with something like "Direct link" as the text. Is anyone still attempting to generate the hashes? Mark Hurd (talk) 05:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and made all the tables collapsed by default. If the comic continues beyond another couple of weeks, I vote for moving them to another page. --Druid816 (talk) 06:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

If the comic ever comes to an end, we could clear out the archived hashes and put all the image links into a multi-column table. The hashes are only really useful to editors trying to upload new images, they don't really add that much to understanding the comic. Davidy²²[talk] 10:29, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Just a theory. On Friday, April 19th at 00:00 there will be 1200 images in the comic, at the same time the strip 1201 of xkcd should be posted on the site. I'm guessing that will end it. (UPDATE: Math is wrong, was still counting half an hour updates. Sorry about that. The numbers will match on May 2nd at 6 in the morning, nothing special there.)--Yinosanchez (talk) 18:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it is about global climate change? "The sea is rising." and now they are building a very tall structure to cope with this ?AH --209.74.126.175 01:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, looks like they're building a boat!!! 64.121.163.170 10:04, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

This is in no way close to a boat, look at any shipyard, that's not how you build a boat! --83.145.101.131 10:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

It is how you build an observation deck, though, or an airport control tower. And if you have the lumber to build such a structure, you could much more easily build a raft. So it's not like they're in any real danger of drowning when the tide gets higher. - 206.173.46.67 20:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

It could be a raptor-proof tower .... not seen any of those in XKCD for a while 86.128.14.32 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Looks like that small tower that Megan added in 500-502 is acting like a levee. The water outside it is higher now (569) than the water inside it. I can't imagine it'll help much, though.
--Mlv (talk) 20:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Has it slowed to once every 2 hours for new frames? --209.74.126.175 14:12, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

For some reason, over the fast few hours the image wasn't automatically updating, and I had to refresh the page to see it. Now it looks like the image and static data XKCD servers are down... at least for me. 129.21.119.153 03:50, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like everything's back to normal. Fortunately, the aubronwood animation page has correctly captured the frames that I missed (although it had a few duplicates during XKCD's weirdness, it's fixed now). 129.21.119.153 15:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I haven't been able to retrieve anything since 23:40 EDT. Larry (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

It surely can't be a coincidence that the comic released the day after this comment was all about John Cage, can it? DarthCrap (talk) 10:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. So who is trolling whom here? This group, or Randall? I would love it if he set up a foundation to keep this cartoon updating for the next N years, where N is the time backwards from this year to some particular early machine, ENIAC or Babbage's Analytical Engine or the Jacquard loom or the abacus, or whatever. (Refer to how the foundation sponsoring the Cage piece got their 639 years.) Taibhse (talk) 08:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Notice the last couple of frames have begun to show waves in the rising sea. (Frames 627-628) Taibhse (talk) 07:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

How could a small hill of sand stopped the entire sea. The world might be two dimensional, or Randall might have wanted to gain some time but it doesn't make much sense. 212.253.22.219 (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2013‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Seriously? Ok - time to review the physics of hydrostatic fluids, folks. Depth is the only variable in calculating fluid pressure. Whether its a bucket or the ocean, the pressure at any given depth in a fluid is the same. A small hill of sand can stop the entire sea. Waves, however, are another matter... Uglystick (talk) 14:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A small hill can stop the sea if it extends infinitely in the Z axis, otherwise the sea will simply flow around it. The other alternative is to encircle the castle with it, forming a moat, but then we wouldn't be able to see the inside. So this can't be a normal 3D universe. Lending some weight to the 2D or nearly 2D nature is that the first platform they put up was installed on only two posts. But the platform itself had width. Maybe they're stuck between two panes of glass like an ant farm. 67.168.18.37 15:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A 2D world would also explain why the structure they're on can stand. It's an imperfectly 2D world though; it's been mentioned below that a pole should in theory stop the water easy. I guess it has some 3D realities to it, i.e., a wall should stop water, but a pole shouldn't. 173.13.244.241 (talk) 19:18, 16 April 2013‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Water depth is increasing quadratically? (Probably not, but it looks nice on the graph so far. My current guess is that it's a sine wave that will peak out at 103 pixels.) Codegardener (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I think in the end it's about what you build up during life and how "the time" washes all of it away, eventually 87.178.224.240 (talk) 16:05, 16 April 2013‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If this were a 2D universe, wouldn't the best course of action be to bury one of the poles directly at the water's edge? That way, like the small sand hill, the sea would have to rise to the very top of the pole before it would flood the remaining sand structures. 74.94.246.5 (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2013‎ (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Just a remark: Frame 458 (time458.png on this page, or hour 337:00) is corrupt, i.e. it deviates from the original that can be retrieved via the hash address. Probabely it was a screencap rather than a direct copy - someone should reupload it.. Oh and the structure on the poles is definitely the mighty Randall's Arc (though it doesn't rain)... 93.135.113.244 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Now they are 'building castles in the air' - dreaming of a future that will never come to pass? Joncaves (talk) 11:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Why should building castles in the air be harder that building farm in clouds? -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The bucket on the pulley used to be carrying just sand. Now, if I read the situation correctly, it's carrying something that's heavier than Megan, so she can't use the pulley (or, possibly, anything else) to pull it up. Lead? Depleted uranium? Dwarf star remnant? 67.168.18.37 15:06, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Seems to me like she was trying to raise herself up in the bucket, then lost her balance and collapsed part of the middle castle when she fell. - Acrisius (talk) 15:39, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Especially considering that dwarf star remnant loosely placed on ground would fall through it. Even if the ground would be armor-plated. Unless it explode first. Hmmm ... this may be good question for the what-if - what will happen if you put dwarf star remnant with size of apple on ground somewhere on earth? Or neutronium? (What happens with black hole was already explained when LHC started.) -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

My favorite episode from the Batman TV series was one where the Riddler gave Batman a nonsense clue which contained a surveillance microphone. He'd then eavesdrop on what Batman “deducted” his next coup would be, and he made it happen. Seeing how the discussion here does seem to affect the events in the comic, I wonder if Randall is pulling a Riddler on us. Just as an experiment, I thought I'd mention that it's odd there are no seagulls at the beach ;-) 201.235.179.15 16:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I like the way that the sea/river/metaphor is now slowly eroding the base of the tower on the right. Also, where are the fish ;-) Eeijevs (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I like how the erosion of the castle is accurate [2].--Deplicator (talk) 11:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

We seem to be missing time 561 from Wednesday? Jillysky (talk) 13:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

And at the moment 599:00 and 600:00 are duplicates. I don't know if something happened (or didn't happen) then, or if the above issue is still being processed. Mark Hurd (talk) 18:00, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

In the frame-by-frame breakdown, the "Image" field simply gives the time in hours, while the "Time" field gives the time in days+hours. It would be helpful if the "Image" field instead gave an ordinal number indicating the number of frames (e.g., this would help to correlate the Transcript on this page with the frame numbers here. The current "Image" field need not be deleted (I personally prefer time in hours to time in days+hours), but it might be relabeled as "Time in Hours". Implementing this would require some use of scripts, and would be best if adopted by the person updating the frame-by-frame breakdown in the first place. 132.236.6.90 16:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

If it's helpful to you guys this text file gets created automatically [3]. I admit it had some problems in the beginning but I think they're all worked out now; it's been adding for days now without any problems. I know you cannot see line numbers in the browser, but if you copy and paste the whole lot into an editor the line numbers are 1 higher than the corresponding png frame.--Deplicator (talk) 01:44, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

When the server had a problem one image was 100 minutes late, and another was 50 minutes late. Because of this there was a file between time682 and time683 that wasn't posted here (time683 should have been time684), and many files after that are displayed here an hour before they should have been displayed, with the wrong filename. It also affects xkcd-time.wikia.com as I had got many of the files on there from here. I am currently trying to correct this. Patzer (talk) 03:01, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if this could be building up to an all black panel for April 22. 74.129.166.50 09:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I just setup an own cronjob which checks the image hash periodly and writes them to a list when its changed: http://panther.stummi.org/xkcdtime.txt
It checks every 10 minutes so it also should notice if the interval changes --Stummi (talk) 09:12, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing that the water will keep rising indefinitely, and we'll be left with an upward-moving strip that occasionally zooms out as the bottom layers are very slowly filled in with black "water." One thing that would make this interesting is the varying heights of the constructed structures (sandcastle turrets, platform, etc.) which would make the process of "overflow" from the right-hand side interesting to watch. 65.96.75.37 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Oh the symbolism of it: Cueball leaves, Megan finishes building their castle, rests and lets her guard down. The next thing to happen is, a cute girl walks in, sees what the two have built together and leaves. The very next frame, the castle starts to fall apart. 217.81.90.198

I'm expecting the lower level-castle to be swept away by the water, while the high-level castle will remain intact. This is quite reasonable, assuming Cueball and Megan knows how high the flood will come and thus they built the platform to an appropriate height. It may be interpreted as the lower-level castle being the work of our life, which is inevitable finite, and will be eventually overtaken by death. Recognizing this, some choose to build a castle for the "after-life". Life-death reflections have been common on xkcd in the past as well. 149.241.18.229 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I call cancer. The tide slowly increasing, the castle threatened, the upper castle... I don't know, it just all gives me that impression. --193.205.81.1 09:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I have to hand it to him though. He has entirely captivated all of us. I can't help but check every day (as opposed to every MWF) to see how the story unfolds. Many thanks to geekwagon for keeping me up to date! Puck0687 (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me, or are the last 4 images missing? I don't know how often this gets updated, if it's still manual at all, I may have did bad calculations with timezones, but at least the current image isn't there. 86.81.124.236 19:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this page is updated manually, so you'll have to wait for someone to update it. Nothing has been missed though. If you want to keep up to date, I suggest using one of the links under Explanation>Related Stuff, especially the aubronwood link. Those update automatically. 129.21.61.189 20:54, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

For me, this is clearly about cancer and the impacts it has on a relationship over time. Randall's now wife was diagnosed and treated for cancer recently and through this comic, he's trying to portray the anxious wait they faced through treatment and remission. He has put us into his shoes by keeping us waiting in suspense to see how things end up. The passing of time represents their life together. At first it's just them relaxing together, probably the dating phase. Soon they start building a life together, represented by the sand castle. The castle evolves over time, much like their life has. Difficulties and gaffes in their relationship are depicted, for example when cueball trips and breaks down part of the wall. Eventually all efforts are diverted and put into defending against the approaching sea, which represents the cancer. The wall, the platform, all represent the steps taken to prevent and/or prepare for it's impending progress. The river represents the cure for cancer, which is still pretty far out, as cueball mentioned. There are many many more clues I see and explanations I can give to support this idea (castle in the sky, the rain, progress with research, etc.), but this is just starting point. I'm excited to see where the comic will end up, but I guess we just need to "wait for it". --Nick (talk) 21:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

You make a good case, and much of the dialog supports that interpretation. Many of us must have been thinking along the same lines. A couple of points...there doesn't have to be only one meaning for the symbolism. Also, there doesn't have to be an "end."

The John Cage connection also seems obvious.

I have been struck by the similarity (and difference) to the Engineers in "A Mote in God's Eye." Innate engineering ability combined with naivete.

I am confident that Randall knows there are literally thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds?) of fans out there giving them moral support and good wishes. Hmm...I wonder if readers are personified by the little girl? Probably not. Taibhse (talk) 22:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The cancer metaphors are quite intriguing, but my take is environmental, possibly pollution and global warming. The French girl (beret) could be a nod to the Disneyland Paris castle. If so it’s our first interactive feedback with Randall on the 1190 strip.Galois (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the beret; Beret Guy has been a recurring theme. Just search xkcd for "beret." But never on a little girl? Taibhse (talk) 23:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm taking it that "sea" is a phonetic substitute for "c," "meaning "cancer." For better or worse, this kind of phoenetic clue was used in the Batman movie:
Batman: Pretty fishy what happened to me on that ladder.
Gordon: You mean, where there's a fish, there could be a Penguin.
Robin: But wait! It happened at sea! See? "C" for Catwoman!
Sigh. I wish I knew what "river" and "rain" represented. Medicine, maybe? 98.117.33.206 23:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Medicine isn't supposed to make the "C" grow. Just the opposite.

And on that note, back when I was working in "Muppet Labs" there was a great little book of cartoons circulating in the lab titled "CDC." Sample: "CDC?" "ICDC. DUCDC?" "O,ICDC2!"

Nothing at all to do with the zombie comics from the actual CDC. But there's the disease theme again -- the CDC.

And what programmer could miss the reference to "C." It gets tangled, which is the best way to do symbolism. Quantum-alphabetic entanglement. Taibhse (talk) 00:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if the intention here is that the "river" is making the "sea" grow. My point is that the dialogue is so nonsensical at points that it seems to be code. I'm taking every noun as a metaphor for something. "Sea" being "cancer" seems to fit ("The cancer can't make more of itself forever, can it?") I guess go back through the dialogue and see what other words could substitute for what they're saying. Like I said, I don't know what "river" or "rain" or "ground" could be in this metaphor. 98.117.33.206 00:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Or "sand." This sand has some rather remarkable, not to say marvelous, properties! Taibhse (talk) 03:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If it's true this represents their struggle with cancer, this strip might very well continue into the future, updating alongside her real-time cancer progress, possibly for years, hopefully not for mere months. Randall knows how this will end no more than we do. 24.29.73.162 23:49, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Guys, if a new frame comes out and it's not uploaded yet, please consider uploading it yourself in the correct time slot. I'm trying to keep up, but there's always 8-hour gaps in our archives every time I go to bed. Davidy²²[talk] 00:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I automatically download all frames as a base for my tide measuring script and I've closed lots of the 8-hour gaps every day. Now at least someone else is doing it, too and I currently can't see any gaps at all. Thanks alot for the collevtive effort! --TreibAir (talk) 07:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a baby on the way? Waiting for the unknown tide to roll in (in 9 months)? 76.15.31.215 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think this is the last day. It's been exactly a month, they seem pretty done with it, and tomorrow's friday....On top of that, the most recent comic was the flipping of a switch on a time machine, in which, something happened, but we don't yet know what....it may be that the "Time" comic is being refreshed. ...Just a thought.... 138.49.1.8 03:20, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Luke Wah

The time machine, once switched on, reversed time to the point at which it was switched on, thus switching itself off. It doesn't seem to be connected to this. ~ Anariston

I'm still hoping they'll suddenly ride in on a tidal wave and smash the entire structure. You know, for closure. ~Pixie

I expect that from now on (Friday April 26th 2013) there will be no more story and the sea will erode the castle until nothing is left (most likely software generated). Maybe Cueball and Megan will return someday, walk to the shore, sit down and, after a while, start building a castle... Jacx 217.81.72.248 11:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Starting at frame 895 the black started fading to white, I think. 217.81.72.248 12:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup, You're right, it's clear when you turn on the difference feature on geekwagon 80.52.210.93 18:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any fading to white -- we're on frame 905 now and everything looks as black-and-white as usual. O.o --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 21:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, ETA: I see fading now, but only after frame 910 in the Aubronwood animation. I guess it just wasn't visible on my old computer screen until now. --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 16:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree - the water has started eroding the castle to the right, and it makes sense for the erosion to potentially loop the comic back to frame 1. That said, the title text was "wait for it". This could be a euphamism suggesting "keep waiting, this comic changes", but it does have an implication that there is a "finale" to the comic that you should wait for. Hard to tell as it's vague. TheHYPO (talk) 13:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The most recent event is Megan walking in, saying "bye!" in *lower case*, and leaving. From the lower case, which is different from the rest of the comic, I infer that she was talking to *us*, not (eg) herself or the sandcastle! I reckon it's just going to fill up with water until the page is a static black rectangle. Especially since she and Cueball just talked about going off and exploring, grabbed their bags, and left. -cosmogoblin 94.197.127.235 13:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the small text was to show a "small voice" - talking quietly and sadly perhaps? It does look like this could be the end of the story though - the last few frames don't seem to have done much after the "fade" in frame 895 - Hippyjim 81.136.241.157 15:15, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the small voice. The sea level is still rising, and interestingly, the sand barrier on the far right is eroding on *both sides* -- not just the seaward side, as previously. Changed properties of the sand or the sea, or both? I think the comic from here on is just going to be erosion. Entropy always wins. :( ~Therrufying 83.233.5.126 18:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The "both-sides" erosion is normal and realistic. If you haven't noticed, the water is on the left side of the embankment for some time already, look at the smooth horizontal line of black pixels between the rightmost castle tower and the embankment. The water just seeped through the sandy embankment and soaked it and starts to erode it. 130.255.153.62 01:25, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The large pile of sand never did form a barrier to the sea. Taibhse (talk) 06:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes it did; Megan's first barrier worked like that, the one she built after Cueball tasted the water. It didn't let in the sea until it overflowed. That was around frame 660-663 (in the Aubronwood animation). --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 16:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, it may have been what you /thought/, but it wasn't very clear from what you /wrote/ that you were actually agreeing with me and not with the previous commenter. Sorry for misunderstanding. --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 13:31, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It's just about over: the picture is fading out now. 81.246.195.216 22:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's just that a large moon is finally rising. That could affect the sea (and the light.) Taibhse (talk) 06:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me, or did the sea/river started to rise faster since the picture started fading to white? --201.53.213.201 14:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the time between frames is constant. Some consecutive frames, like the ones featuring the trebuchet (212-214), are less than a second apart.--70.134.72.83 18:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Does the ladder and railing look like the axis for a graph? Is this a graph of people or area affected by water rise due to global warming - as a function of time? 174.50.74.170 15:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC) rbnm

That's...a bit of a stretch. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Alpha (talk) 17:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

It's fading to white a lot faster now than the sea is rising. Unless something else happens, I'd say it's all white by tomorrow. So, maybe if one source of entropy doesn't get you, another will. 67.168.18.37 12:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The fade rate poly is now [7.912739E-004 x^3 - 0.018842 x^2 + 0.794901 x + 0.09838], and is still on the same progression. At this rate, the panel hits 255 (full white) at 09:00 UTC, 4/29/13. Wait for it. Galois (talk) 14:24, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you know what the frame number will be when it hits white? Randall's pretty close to an even 1000, I'm wondering if he's engineered it to turn white for either 1000 or 1024. --Mynotoar (talk) 20:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe it'll be filed as time966.png.--Druid816 (talk) 20:52, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Just an afterthought, a meteor hit directly on the sand castle would let Randall go out in a blaze of glory. I hope beret girl is OK.Galois (talk) 23:27, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Seems like the story is not going to stop with total fadeout: image is still readable, as what was black is going to be 100% transparent (and probably still black), and white is still opaque. Maybe geekwagon page owner (or someone) could add a feature of removing alpha channel? --Electrichk (talk) 08:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The early 80s song Fade to Grey from the band Visage comes to my mind. Memories of what happened start to fade over time and get more and more pale. 213.23.38.20 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Again, if you're awake and the frame for the current hour hasn't been uploaded yet, please upload it yourself. I am doing the brunt of the work right now, and I am not available 24/7 to get the latest frame up. Davidy²²[talk] 10:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

969 (+848) is completely blank on my LCD. I also cannot see Beret Girl in (967 or) 968 corresponding to +847 that User:75.84.65.238's edit suggests. I can see Beret Girl using 192.54.204.33's Paint with Black and White trick. This does include 969 which is otherwise actually monotone on my LCD, even on a great angle. Mark Hurd (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Try viewing the comic from an extreme angle. I was able to see the Beret girl in 967+968 by tilting my screen forward on my laptop. You can't really see it otherwise. If that fails, use Photoshop or look at the diff functionality here. 969 is completely blank to me. 129.21.119.185 13:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Wait, I got those numbers mixed up, I think. 968 and 969 have Beret Girl in it, you just need to view at an extreme angle to see it. 970 (+849) looks blank to me, but there's still something there. The scene uses RGB 254,254,254, which is why it doesn't appear at all on my screen. You can reveal it using the diff or a smart selection tool in Photoshop or the like. 129.21.119.185 13:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, using the diff function on geekwagon.net is probably the easiest way to see it. She seems to be dragging something (looks like a canvas?) into the scene. But I can't see frame 969 (let alone 970) on geekwagon, the last frame there seems to be 968, and it appears completely white on my monitor without the diff view. --186.203.199.207 13:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Just copy the image to Paint and set the image property to Black & White. All non-white (255,255,255) pixels are set to black (0,0,0) and the image is revealed. 192.54.204.33 13:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

NB With Chrome, copying the image from xkcd [4] or here File:time970.png (+849) with right-click -> Copy image looses the detail. You need to get the .png into Paint for it to work. Copy image URL and Paint's File > Open will do it. Mark Hurd (talk) 14:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And [5] (972 +851:00 36/11:00) was missing for a couple of minutes... Mark Hurd (talk) 15:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And now there is an image again (frame 971/972)! Looks like slightly uneven black ground under a white sky. Wow, I really thought that was it when it faded to white. Cool cool cool. --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 15:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm... we gonna see a guy floating in a barrel?? -z64dan 204.57.93.104 15:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And now I think we're going to see that too! Hippyjim (talk) 00:23, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

And now we're off to see the wizard!! This is great! A comic within a comic! Taibhse (talk) 17:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see this as a comic in a comic -- I see it more as act 2 (after the fadeout of act 1, with the stage crew jumping the gun and being caught on camera heading on stage to change the set). Theoretically, this second act can be as long as the first one -- The Quest for the Source of the River/Sea. (Hmmm, that reminds me of the song "River in the Sea" from the musical Ten November, a 2 minute sample available at http://www.prudencejohnson.com/sounds/gales/River_in_the_Sea.mp3). Meteoricshipyards (talk) 18:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC) Tom A.

By "comic within a comic" I meant that not only do we await a new xkcd installment several times a week, but now we also have a single panel (1190) with an ongoing story. This is even better than Click and Drag! Taibhse (talk) 19:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Wether it's a navy cap or not may be open to interpretation (though I'd still bet it's a beret - it surely looks a lot more like the one the beret guy wears, and I think Randall would have put a little more effort into that detail if he wanted it to pass off as a navy cap). As for it being a boy, no. It's definitely a girl, you can clearly see it has a longer hair, and come to think of it, Randall rarely draws any hair at all for male characters anyway. --201.53.213.201 23:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I am hoping that this "Time" somehow connects to the "Click and Drag" comic i.e. when the camera zoom out far enough, we'll see that they are actually in the "Click and Drag" world. --98.14.191.109 23:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me, or should there be a category to contain both this and "Click and Drag"? Should the categories "Interactive" and "Dynamic" be merged into something like "Epic" or "Nerd Sniping"?38.78.130.2 14:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Odd, it looks like +861, +862, and +863 are out of order, judging by the ground not changing at all and the characters not walking continuously. I wonder if that was an accidental mistake in XKCD server's delivery of the images or if there's an actual meaning to it. 129.21.63.158 02:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

During the last glacial period the sea level was more than 100 meters lower than it is nowadays, so coastal structures looked very different and the continents exposed much more land. I believe the first act of this comic references medieval ages in Europe where people would witness (over the scope of hundreds of years or longer) losing land and coastal towns to the sea but not understanding the process, as Megan states. I'm expecting the second act, and possibly further acts, to reference the abundance of scientifical discoveries made during the last few centuries. 37.201.91.80 12:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I could hack a little bash script on my server which uploads the current image every hour. However for this i need uploads by URL from API allowed ($wgAllowCopyUploads in LocalSettings.php). --Stummi (talk) 12:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Would be great if at the end of the walk, there's a band playing "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.

It will end with image 1190, of course. 66.38.57.117 16:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, they've made it back to the beach. I think it will end either at 1000 or 1024, and the only reason it might go to 1024 is allow some dialog and zooming in. :-) --Divad27182 (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I thought that too initially - the terrain features certainly seems identical (to scale) to the one at the start of the story. But something's bothering me; it's about the frame before we see they are back on a beach - they are already seated, so it's fair to assume they haven't moved, yet the terrain is different. By looking at the terrain, you could guess that maybe the terrain is inverted, which would then indicate that the frame with the beach in view is from a different angle than the previous frame. But for that to be the case, Cueball would have to be behind Megan on the previous frame, yet, their positions are unchanged on these frames. So, I don't know... I'll stop rambling now, and just wait and see, I guess... --Fernandofig (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, guess it's not ending just yet :-) . The duo packed up again and they're getting out of the beach (whichever it is). --Fernandofig (talk) 22:06, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Wait, what? It looks like they are suddenly back at a beach that looks the same as the first one, just zoomed out. But before when the scene was presumably inverted, the terrain didn't look quite like that. If the scene really did get inverted, maybe they aren't actually on a beach right now, but the sea will eventually expand until it reaches them. Then again, we don't know if this is the same plane of space that the original beach was either. They were just walking to the right. The concept of space in this comic is confusing me right now. I wonder if this will make sense later. 129.21.63.158 18:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

But what about their knapsacks? I guess they are not going to throw them to the sea... Hope this won't end up with loop right now, it would be too disappointing --Electrichk (talk) 19:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It appears that the camera perspective has changed. 1 - 970 are all perpendicular to the shoreline, with the water on the right, camera looking down the shore. 971-996 are shown parallel to the shore line, with the camera position apparently out over the water or standing at the shore, looking back toward land. (If the camera had maintained the original position, the characters would have simply gotten smaller as the walked away, but instead we got to see the walk across the frame while presumably following the shore.) In 997, the camera perspective just comes back around to be a profile shot again, looking down the shoreline, water once again on the right. -- 65.183.156.9 19:40, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Near the end of the transcript, it says that at +847 Beret Girl drops in again, dragging something. I used Photoshop to lower the brightness, and can see about half of her head facing away from the sandcastle. She's not dragging anything. Here's my evidence: [6]108.51.68.241 22:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Try frame +848, that's where you can see her dragging something ~Pixie

I added a section for normalized versions of the first 10 hours of day 36. If anyone wants me to add more, e.g. go back to where the fade started, I would. BTW, I used something like 'pngtopnm $i | pnmnorm | pnmtopng > $j' inside a loop. Those commands are from the NetPBM package. Larry (talk) 23:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

If Randall decides to go into a loop, let's not forget he can change any single frame or create a parallel storyline from any frame he likes. Blue Charizard (talk) 07:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

He guys, what was with the grey on I think 1008-1011? And what happened to it? It disappeared on everything.--108.70.209.33 16:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but from frame 998 to 1001 (sitting, side-on view), the 'water' level continues to rise.

Not sure if it has ever been brought up but has anyone noticed it says "BTC 1NEPgrUmed3VyXpqbYZom7YVJ8MozYrNWx
We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close." at the bottom of every page. i could not find this algorithm anywhere else 74.4.25.11 18:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Just a thought - In panel 1018 (time 897), Megan states "If we don't find something today, we'll have to start using the steam bottle." If that means they're out of water... the last update has both of them drinking water at the edge of the river. No one spit it out this time. If they refilled their water bottle at the river, it's not the source of the pollution. Galois (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's pollution going on; the body of water they started at was an ocean, so it was salt water. They have come to a river, so they can now drink the fresh water.163.120.70.10 00:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, you can get the normalized (non-faded) portion of the fading scene very easily with imagemagick. Assuming you have the named like image00000.png image00001.png etc.. you can get a nice animated gif from "bye" to beret girl with:

...And there we got as far as frame 1190, which several people have called as the end, and the story does not appear to be resolved at all. How long can this go on? --Therrufying 83.233.5.126 17:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so it didn't end with 1190. Must have misread the prophecies. 66.38.57.117 00:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

"How long can this go on? I would say a very long time. Currently, each day is filled mostly with a very few backgrounds used over several comics with only the characters moving -- not that difficult to produce -- and maybe a few lines of dialog, which also allows for the repetition of the background. He can probably keep this pace for months. It would be a bit disappointing, but possible. The strip certainly doesn't seem to be approaching any sort of conclusion. But, I think, like certain kinds of art, its the presentation that important. And he is presenting Time. -Tom A. "Time is a local condition." - wish I could remember who said that. Meteoricshipyards (talk) 15:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Uploaders

Can I please not be one of the only three people on this wiki uploading frames? I live a busy life, I miss some of the time slots. If you see that the frame for the current hour hasn't been uploaded yet, try clicking on the red link and uploading it yourself. Davidy²²[talk] 08:39, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I did sign in right now and will try to help.--Dgbrt (talk) 13:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd really like to do so, but everytime I look, I can't find the missing ones in my cache esp due to filenames - Is there a script or sth how I can save the original .PNGs automatically to another folder when they update? Trofobi (talk) 09:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's the quick hack I run every 10 minutes. I don't know what an "sth" is. Larry (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Animated gif

hey, can we upgrade the animated gif to a picture with a sliding bar? maybe with a play/pause button as well? this way you can jump to whatever frame you're interested in, and pause for however long you like on frames with text and such... 81.218.146.161 11:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be working for me :( 107.205.30.219 00:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk too long

The Discussion block is pretty huge and I thing it should be removed from the main page. Maybe a link and a hint to the link at the tab on top of this article. What do you think? --Dgbrt (talk) 15:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed that the exact same identical image was re-used several times recently? If you go to http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/ and tell it to show differences from frame 1090, and then start clicking forward, the following frames are all exactly the same: 1094, 1097, 1101, 1103, 1107. Looking at http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/# you can then see that 1111 and 1113 are also the same. The rapid perspective change makes the animation appear to strobe. Could this be some strange attempt to illustrate something like an earthquake, or are they just re-using frames to avoid having to draw so many? 65.183.156.9 02:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

As you may have read above, the server did deliver one image repeatedly, so some sites may show this image multiple times. --84.174.9.61 08:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

You can see it in the log for geekwagon, do an in page search (ctrl+f) for f8a6414c334a71481e16428691fe8465098b2bae956e44727d0482c7632a84ff. That image is collected multiple times and causes other images to be duplicated too because the script only checks to see if the current link is different than the previous.--Deplicator (talk) 13:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I think what happened is that one of the three sites (107.6.97.102) started giving the same result each time. Now, I think they are down for maintenance.... --Divad27182 (talk) 20:47, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Hours

There seems to be a problem starting with today (Sunday, 2013-05-05): The first picture should be 984:00 and not 983:00. I'm not able to check if it's simply a bot (?) error writing down the hours or something more serious. --82.135.84.245 15:56, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Hour 983 on image 1104 Saturday (23:00 UTC) also appears on image 1105 Sunday (00:00 UTC). The image numbers are correct, but the hour count appears to be off by 1 hour now.Galois (talk) 16:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

After downloading again the pictures around 700 everything looks fine. I can not find more duplicates.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Boy, that one gave me headaches. 1236 and 1237 seem to be the same. MediaWiki doesn't like multiple images that are the same... --SlashMe (talk) 20:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not a boy, I am slightly older...

But in fact 1237 is same content as 1236 and MD5 hash is also the same (not the first one) but the link HASH is different. It is maybe a new hurdle for us. I will check. Stay tuned... --Dgbrt (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems you could fix this. Files are just identical. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I just uploaded a bunch of hashes and files, there have been some errors. The hashes are now correct, but could somebody please check that the files (1410 to 1420) match the hashes? --SlashMe (talk) 07:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Split the movie?

The page is becoming impossible to load.

I would suggest to split the movie into pieces, for instance by making a separate sub-page for each week (avoiding embarassing discussion on the most natural cutting point). Each week can have a separate description, seven-seconds animation, list of 7x24 pictures etc, and a link to the following and previous weeks.

My only suggestion would be give it larger segments. I don't think it needs to be as small as a week - after all, it loaded fine for a very long time. Maybe approx. half a scene each? Scene 1 is 971 frames long, so how about split at 500, at 971, and again at 1500 (when it gets there)? 24.129.75.17 08:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It's one and a half megabytes. The biggest issue here probably is the anemic servers that managed to struggle and crash even when that animation was just a static png and the page itself was only a few lines long. When the image starts clocking in at ~4-5 megabytes, it'll probably get to be a proper problem for those on poor connections, but we're not quite there yet. Davidy²²[talk] 08:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I suggest pushing the hashes off onto their own page(s). That's 80% of the page's text right there. (Seriously. Click 'edit' on the main page and scroll.) At the very least, we could archive March and April. As more hashes are added, we archive the older ones. Maybe just constantly leave a week's worth of hashes on the main page? --Druid816 (talk) 15:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

What is the sea?

It doesn't have to be an "ocean." Consider the Aral Sea. The Dead Sea. Our "sea" doesn't have any surf, apparently. Frame 1187: "I wonder if it's possible to swim in." Our characters don't know whether you can swim in a river? Have they never seen fresh water deep enough for swimming? Taibhse (talk) 13:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This is not real life. And they know it's not real life. Maybe they are in some sort of Matrix and know about it, or they are playing a video game. They've seen in developers' blog that devs are working on a lot of new features for version 0.19, such as improved sand physics, multiple rivers, rain, salty water, trebuchets, swimming, surf, etc. But then developers decided to release part of these features in version 0.19, and leave the rest for 0.20. When Cueball an Megan saw that version 0.19 is out, they immediately decided to try it out, without even looking at the changelog. So they don't know which features made it into this version, and which ones will be in the next one. So far they have played around with new sand physics and trebuchets, tried swimming in the sea, tried to drink sea water, found a new river. They haven't seen any surf, so they think it'll be in 0.20. They have yet to try swimming in a river, or see the rain. They have also found a bug that causes sea level to raise indefinitely. They think it could be caused either by rain, additional rivers, or just by a griefer who built a giant sand generator array to fill in the sea and flood everything. Oh, and they can't just create a new private world to see if the sea raises there, because of the DRM.

Swimming in a river is dangerous if there's a strong current. Even slow moving water has a lot of power. The sea could be the ocean, connected to the ocean, or one of the large bodies of water referred to as a sea. Enjoy the comic and have fun second guessing Randall.Galois (talk) 18:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

We know: "The sea is big" and "The river is small".

But we also know about the sea: There are no waves. It's just rising. So it is not an ocean, it's just a lake. Many people say "sea" to a lake when they can not see the other side.

And we know their home river is small. But right now they explore a different bigger river.

We know it's not summer so maybe it is spring and the river is rising like every year?

Both characters have slept occasionally but never at the same time. There has been no depiction of night (unless the fade counts as one.) Hmm... Taibhse (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems we are still at day one. Building castles in the morning and exploring their environment after that. But you are right, they have to sleep and I do fear about many DARK pictures...--Dgbrt (talk) 20:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed that when the camera zooms out to show the other side of the river/see the middle island just becomes smaller, but the distance between Cueball / Magan and the middle island stays the same? --FG (talk) 15:0, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems like the two river halves (or two rivers) merge as Megan and Cueball hike upstream. New point: I joined all the images covering their journey since image 1150 (last stop for water). it spans 18204 pixels. Assuming Cueball is 6 feet tall (wild guess + it's an even number), they have now hiked a total of 0.517 miles (83228.7 cm) from image 1150.Galois (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Considering the elaborate and fragile sand castles, the one- and two-person construction of the platform and its castle components, and maybe the latest antics at the top of the dunes, it appears that gravity is not Earth-normal. Or perhaps the law of gravitation is not our-universe-normal. (No reason it should be, of course.) Taibhse (talk) 03:11, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Archive

Since this 1190 will never end, will it? I think we need some archive sites.

First could be "1190 Time Images 2013-03 March" (<- I am calling this human readable ISO)
So, if you understand, each month of picture links and hashes on a separate page.

Next would be "1190 Time Images 2013-04 April"

And a few months from now we also have to do this for the "Transcript".

If this comic goes on forever, maybe. For now, we could probably compact the page by grouping the frames from each month into wider tables and scrapping their hashes. The hashes are really only useful for checking that we got the images right, so they're kinda useless for the really old ones. Davidy²²[talk] 01:05, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Since we do not know if there is anything hidden in the hashes we still should save them here. But past months could be moved into a different page.--Dgbrt (talk) 10:27, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

They're hashes, I'm pretty sure there isn't anything hidden in the arrangement of letters and numbers. If there was, the xkcd forums would have been all over it long ago. Davidy²²[talk] 10:44, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you are right but they are still the original file names on xkcd.--Dgbrt (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

We don't carry the original Click and Drag filenames on this wiki; the filenames of parts of large comics don't carry anything of value to people visiting the wiki. They only really help with cross-checking images with the originals to make sure we didn't mess up anywhere, and we've already done that to death for the earlier images - so the hashes for earlier images no longer hold much value. Davidy²²[talk] 14:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Don't shout at me. I am just thinking about archiving past months to different pages. The current month should stay on the main page. I am new here and so I am doing not that edit until I get some agreements. But we should save ALL here.--Dgbrt (talk) 17:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't shouting, there is no need to bring ad hominem into this discussion. There are a number of solutions available here; we could tabulate frames per month as per this neglected post, offload prior months to other pages, or scrap old hashes to cut a large portion of the article's body text. Each solution will lead to degradation of the explanation, splitting the article will force multiple page loads while removing the hash values will be destroying part of the metadata around the comic. Ideally, we wouldn't have to make the split at all, but speed considerations mean that we eventually will have to do it. In that eventuality, all we can do is the thing that degrades the explanation for the average visitor the least. What do visitors care more about, faster load times/having all the frames on one page or having 1000-odd incomprehensible and meaningless hash values? We don't display the individual filenames for Click and Drag even though they were more informative than the hashes here, because they hold little value to visitors; they only take up space that could be used to further enhance the explanation. Pure archival without curation is what other websites do, not a wiki with the intended goal of making xkcd accessible. Davidy²²[talk] 23:56, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

IMHO having all of the images here is as useless as having hashes: most people use aubronwood or geekwagon anyways. To decrease loading times, I'd suggest to do 2 things:

Move all tables to a new page.

Replace the animated gif with a static gif (possibly latest frame?) that links to the animated gif.--DiEvAl (talk) 14:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I think if we are to keep the hashes at all, they should appear on the description pages for each image. There's no reason for them to be on the comic page. Skiasaurus (talk) 23:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Prediction

Does anyone else see the last frame (whenever it may be), have the ability to connect to the first, thus creating a cycle? Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 22:14, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

No reason it couldn't, but it seems premature. Early days yet. What's Beret Girl up to? Taibhse (talk) 15:15, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

My only prediction is: We will see what did happen to that castles and we will see that Beret Girl again. Wait for it!--Dgbrt (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

My theory: Based on the frames don't change much; Randell is an expert at creating xkcd frames; he only needs 24 per day to keep going; and we have no idea how long he's been preparing for this. It could last forever.--Deplicator (talk) 19:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

It will not last forever. But it seems it will still last for a long time. Wait for it!--Dgbrt (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Forever is a big speculation. A more realistic speculation would be "as long as the Internet."--Deplicator (talk) 19:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

You realize that what we've seen so far is what the beginning of a comic that goes on forever looks like :-) Tom A. ("I don't want to be immortal through my art! I want to be immortal by not dying." - Woody Allen.) Meteoricshipyards (talk) 14:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps yesterday's bird was a hint at today's comic. Or he had dinosaurs on the brain. (Don't we all?) ChozoBoy (talk) 14:57, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

So Cueball and Megan seem to entering a region with much more vegetation. Up until now I had assumed that the previous regions had vegetation as well but Randall just hadn't bothered drawing it (such detail is rare in XKCD). So what does presence of vegetation mean? More rainfall? Higher elevation? Also how far have Cueball and Megan travelled? I don't think the frames are necessarily contiguous - if this was a movie we'd have background music to go with the images. They could have been travelling for days or weeks - I definitely don't think it is still the same day as the start of Act II. I suppose 'time' will tell. Joncaves (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The yawn suggests that they haven't slept yet, so quite possibly the same day. Also interesting that they seem to treat first the small bush and now the tree as worthy of notice -- were there no trees where they lived? 173.228.6.11 06:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The current frame (1355) looks remarkably similar to the area at left hand edge of XKCD 1110 (Click and Drag), which also features the same two characters discussing how they've walked "pretty far". I wonder how much of a coincidence this is. 82.69.211.1 11:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone has an explanation for the change from frame 1360 to 1361? --FG (talk) 10:41, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought the transition from 1359 -> 1360 was even more 'abrupt' than the transition from 1360 - > 1361 (in fact my first thought was that 1360 was out-of-order or some other 'mistake'). But from subsequent frames it has become clear that Cueball wandered off and explored the area on his own while Megan was sleeping. Joncaves (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I think [1359:1362] looks similar to [1097:1120]. Probably Cueball was just walking perpendicularly to the image. --DiEvAl (talk) 21:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's another example of the slightly 'strange' way of talking: "I'm surprised we haven't been seen by any people yet". Wouldn't most people say: "I'm surprised we haven't seen any people yet"? So who are 'people'? Are 'people' somehow invisible to both Cueball and Megan? Are 'people' a threat? Have 'people' also moved on because of the rising sea level? Joncaves (talk) 19:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of strange phrases, for them to say that tree "probably knows what it is doing" is rather odd. Are they in a world where trees have consciousness, or are they just deeply confused? 66.193.253.212 18:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The latest frame (1506) has two trees. They are almost certainly baobab trees. There are 8 species of baobab tree, but of those 8, 6 are endemic to the island of Madagascar, including the species which the trees in the comic most resemble, the Grandidier baobab. Even if they are not one of the six species endemic to Madagascar, the fact that they are baobabs still limits them to the continent of Africa, the countries of Oman and Yemen, and northwestern Australia. This means that the big sea, if it is an ocean, is most likely the Indian Ocean. 76.92.118.150 18:30, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we are just at a fantasy world. And Randall is working against every prediction done here or at some forums. We only have to "Wait for it!".--Dgbrt (talk) 21:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone else agree that frames 1485 through 1487 are exactly identical? Just a glitch somewhere?98.201.4.16 01:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, not only the pixels, but also the files' checksums are exactly the same. Checked it twice. --83.243.48.2 08:57, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I did fix the links and also at the main page.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:20, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

"Description: The allocated data traffic of the hosting account for this website has been exceeded and the website is temporarily suspended"
Maybe we should host the map here on the wiki? --DiEvAl (talk) 20:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

No, this map is funny but still not validated. Help me to collect some facts at the bottom here. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:30, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Where did the map go? I'm getting "...does not exist or cannot be displayed" Does your page have an error? Or are you having hosting issues?--Gerry (talk) 01:36, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

(Gerry, are you making this comment after following the "New map links: JavaScript version and non-JS version" links given? Those work for me, at this time of editing, and got those links presented to me when going to the original URI with the SVG extension.)

Regarding the accuracy, I imagine Randall may have used a data model of countoured landscape (1D or 2D, plus height) to auto-generate the scrolling/panning/rotating scenery base prior to decorating with figures/etc, but whether there's enough information to fully back-derive such a map from the ever-changing landscape I couldn't say. I assume assumptions, at the very least, and maybe some inventiveness on the part of any given interpreter. 178.98.124.195 19:42, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

(Yes, I had been using the new links. As I later found out it was after their monthly server allotment had been exhausted. It started working again June 1.)--Gerry (talk) 03:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Simple English

Conversation is in "Simple English". I am not native English but I think we should mention this. Am I wrong?--Dgbrt (talk) 20:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a distinction between "Simple" and regular English, at least in the USA. I think it's just something they use for teaching non-native speakers. --Druid816 (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

"Simple English" isn't a special dialect or anything, but the conversation definitely has a simple, almost naive, style. Lots of single-syllable vocabulary without much Latin-derived flowery or "sophisticated" words. I counted 27 three-syllable words and one four-syllable word in the entire dialog, scenes 1 and 2 combined. They don't seem to have a name for "sand dunes." They talked about a river being "broken." They are very playful, mature but child-like. It gives the story a kind of alien feel. Taibhse (talk) 17:27, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Are We Lost Yet?

Big trees

A great guy at the xkcd forum did identify the big trees starting at frame 1503 (1382:00 hours). They belong to Madagascar and their name is Adansonia grandidieri. But also a few of them do exist in the US. So I am still not sure where we are.--Dgbrt (talk) 18:11, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

One of the little asteroid-planets from The Little Prince?

"Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces..." 69.123.166.176 00:20, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks like we have grapevines now, or something like them, with man-made trellising. 12.153.137.82 21:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

A hypothesis

Randall's animation is taking place in a distant, post-collapse future ("distant" is relative, here-- say sometime in the next few hundred years, though possibly much further): human civilization is back at a late-Iron Age stage of development, though maybe with slightly more sophisticated metallurgy. The reasons I suggest this are: 1) rising sea-level that is on-going, 2) they can work wood and they have agriculture, 3) they have shown no awareness of any more "advanced" technology, 4) yet they have no qualms about wandering off into the wilderness without what most of us would consider adequate protection.

The one reason I might think it's farther into the future is the bit with the trees. I can't decide if their shape is a consequence of evolution (convergent, so that they are very similar to the Adansonia grandidieri), or they were transplanted (presumably to somewhere south? Higher altitude? Both? Antarctica?). Evolution would imply deeper in the future, and transplantation could be sooner.

I'm really interested to see what the truth is, because it's got me thinking along all kinds of planes.184.99.231.23 21:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Stuck Again

Randall seems to be stuck at hour 1524 (image number 1545), at 20:00 UTC we now have 5 copies of the same empty image with half a vineyard with no end in sight.Galois (talk) 20:31, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

No, files are still different, even when you can't see it. File sizes did change and also md5sum. But I did not check the small changes visual right now. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Use "Previous Frame Difference" on geekwagon, you can see a line of pixels that differ. --SlashMe (talk) 20:50, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if the squirrel is following her...--Gerry (talk) 21:27, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Me too, but I am hoping Megan will get a pet. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:30, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I see the streak. I expected the squirrel to follow her. Geekwagon showed it, so did Photoshop.Galois (talk) 22:07, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

It's probably the squirrel, though the frame difference visual made me go "snake! snake in the grass!" 173.228.6.189 22:14, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

It's still fun. Will Megan get at pet? A chary Squirrel? I am still tuned. --Dgbrt (talk) 22:24, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New clue, image 1692 - "Still, it's better than when we were following the sea, walking straight into the sun all morning." Walking east along the sea, it places them on the south side of anything. Galois (talk) 15:23, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

This may be more speculation than not, but the two turned north to follow the river and are now walking on a heading somewhere between NE and NW, which puts them in the northern hemisphere if they can see their shadow in front of them. This is also confusing since there aren't many Grandidier's Baobab trees there [7].Galois (talk) 20:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that these orientations are plausible from the dialog in the strip, but remember, we're already pretty certain that they're not in the same universe as us, so we may not be able to assume that the sun rises in the east. There's no evidence to demonstrate that their world rotates west-to-east like ours does, but there's no evidence that it doesn't, either. Let's at least remember the possibility that all of these directions are reversed from what our current theory states. 71.201.53.130 18:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

At least this time we know it's a snake. In image 1738 [8] the curled snake is fully visible, complete with a raised head and tail. At 2 pixels high, details are a little sketchy.Galois (talk) 17:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The Planting People

So what do we know about them? They've been gone a while, long enough for Cueball to believe it was fine to take grapes. But they haven't been gone for a long time, because we've seen a staked sapling that is likely only a year or two old. They have vineyards and what look to be orchards. They appear to use tents, at least the frame we saw looked to be tied together at the top to form a teepee frame. They are sophisticated enough to do things like put benches next to trees, so they aren't subsistence farmers. Anything else? Tavella (talk) 18:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Forgot a couple of things, they have what is possibly writing (are Cueball and Megan illiterate?), and it's different than that of the Hill People, but their debris appears to look the same.

They appear to be either hunter-gatherers or have abandoned the area (for some reason - why?). From [9] "Many groups of 'nomadic' hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers) moved from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables." We have seen three campsites; Cueball burried the embers from their fire (see image 1048 & 1062-1064 [10]). Galois (talk) 13:22, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I did wonder about some kind of seasonal movement, but if so it's odd that they left the teepee to collapse (and be damaged, one of the supports is visibly cracked) rather than taking the materials with them or storing them more neatly. Tavella (talk) 17:44, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Go to a vineyard in late summer or early autumn, you will not see the "The Planting People". We only know that we are at this particular season because they can eat grapes from that plants and before they could swim in the sea. And both are following the sun in the morning, witch does mean they are walking East. --Dgbrt (talk) 19:28, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but you will see the Harvesting People if the grapes are ripe, and they apparently are. Tavella (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Finally seeing where all the wood came from -- stumps everywhere. Tavella (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

What do we know by the end of May 2013?

I'm trying to collect some facts:

-They did build a sand castle and the weather was warm enough to swim in the sea. The taste of the water is bad, and the sea is raising.

-Then both are trying to find a reason for that raise and they are starting to travel around this special river.

-They are still going uphill while we never have seen that mountains.

-Eating grapes from a vineyard means we are at least at late summer.

-Walking to the sun in the morning is just walking to the east.

Two month's in this comic and we really do not know much more. Stay tuned, wait for it. We do not know much more essentials. Does Randall?--Dgbrt (talk) 22:43, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

They are also apparently now heading west, or mostly west. Their shadows are in front of them, and while that could be west in the morning or east in the evening, they are contrasting it with walking into the sun in the morning as they were along the shore, so it's west. Presumably they were walking mostly north until the decision to head for the mountains, since Cueball has just started playing with his shadow. Tavella (talk) 00:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, but they are walking to the sun in the morning. That's east (on northern hemisphere, I still do not think we are at Madagascar). So we do have an other fact:

-They then turned to their left to go upriver. That's would be going north.

-If you are above the tropics, your shadow will always lay to the north of you.

-Megan says what they're doing is better than when they had to walk into the sun, and it's been established that they walked along the sea for days, so they'd be familiar with walking with the sun directly behind them, too. If they were now walking west, it would pretty much be the same situation, except reversed. It doesn't really make sense to me that she'd call one situation better than the other. It feels more like they aren't walking into the sun at all anymore. Therefore, I think they are now keeping the sun relatively behind them by going north, which indicates they are north of the equator, and probably north of the Tropic of Cancer. Even at noon, the sun would be behind you slightly, to the south. And if you're walking uphill, it would be very visible to you.

They are moving East as Megan did explain. When they can see their shadows in front of them it's just evening, the sun is now behind them. What tells me that Day One is coming to an end. --Dgbrt (talk) 19:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

They did mention that that had been walking for days, so who knows how many days it's been.--Gerry (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Does today's "What If" give a clue to the current year? Unless it's been "fixed", it says "two hundred years from now, in April of 2432". :-) Larry (talk) 13:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

This map is incorrect but still a great fun. They are walking west in the evening, not north. But I am also sure the site will be back soon.

Nevertheless, if you can help here you are welcome! --Dgbrt (talk) 18:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

No, their shadows are in front of them, so they are either walking west in the morning or east in the evening. Since they were comparing it favorably with their experience of walking east in the morning along the sea shore, they therefore must be going west (or mostly west) currently. Tavella (talk) 19:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, they've probably turned away from the river, since Cueball thought it important to refill the water bottle before heading for the mountains. So, east along the seashore, north along the river, then west towards the mountains. Tavella (talk) 19:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Snake Theories

Megan mentions snakes with spikes over their eyes. That covers several species, all poisonous, but they are native to the American west and southwest, Mexico, Central America, north Africa and the Middle East. The snake that Cueball finds might be a slow-worm, a limbless reptile native to Eurasia. It's shiny, brown, has a blunt head, and can shed its tail like a lizard, which might give it a half-finished look if Cueball saw it that way. But a stronger contender is the rubber boa, which is native to the western US, and has a famously stubby head and tail.

This makes me think of one area: The Great Salt Lake. The Bear River empties into it from a northerly direction, and the area has the rubber boa and at least one type of poisonous horned snake. Native Americans of the area even had legends of the Horned Serpent. And that had to be a teepee we saw earlier. (I don't think Native Americans had trebuchets or berets, though....) --Druid816 (talk) 01:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

(...Except, unless they built a salt castle, it's more likely to be in a place with considerably more sand.)Galois (talk) 19:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The Great Salt Lake makes sense unless this comic does not belong to our real world. We just have to find this Adansonia grandidieri trees or something similar at Utah. And this lake has beaches of sand, ok salty sand.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Follower?

Megan is looking back sometimes since a few frames... May she has the feeling that someone is following them? People from the hills? The squirrel? -- Joggl (talk) 18:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, Megan is looking at something. But what it is we just do not know. Wait for it. --Dgbrt (talk) 19:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it's Beret Girl? She's the only other human we've seen so far. 94.170.131.19 21:33, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

It's just the sea, they must be high in the mountains. --Dgbrt (talk) 22:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

We've got chicks, and not the first time: In image 1830-1831 Megan says "I heard chirps from the night sky once. I was looking at the stars one night and I heard peeping. - It was very quiet. - just a single chirp now and then." They were sleeping under a tree around image 1354, a bird flies overhead, later Cueball takes a walk. We can see some chicks at the end of his walk at images 1374-1376 [11]. It just took me a while to figure out what it was.Galois (talk) 20:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Take a closer look; there's some kind of wisp hanging out in some of the empty frames and the ones Megan's looking back in. It's only about a pixel wide, but a few long; broken up, serpentine, almost ethereal.

In the hut scene (June 20) there seems to be something large moving in the bushes next to the fence. There was also something something poking in on the left back by the cairn (a few frames back). 216.239.45.91 18:18, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been keeping a log of Hidden Animals in 1190: Time: Pictures. The first one you saw is likely a bird. There's a chick moving around in the grass. The recent scene (frame numbers 2214-2225) is a swarm (bugs?) that came in from the left and moved into the bush. Use this Geekwagon Link to view the hidden images. Galois (talk) 20:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Aubronwood problem

Has anyone noticed that the aubronwood site only seems to show every other frame after a certain point? Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 15:52, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it looks buggy. I'm always using my own downloads and this geekwagon.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Noticed the same. Looks like the left and right arrow keys don't work after a certain point, but the up and down arrow keys and the mouse wheel continue to work correctly. -- 205.171.58.158 17:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I found that if I hit "Slower" when this happens, it returns to single frame navigation with arrow keys.

If you click on the slider at the bottom of the page, left and right keys then move it one pixel, which is currently 2 images. If you click on the comic to move focus there, arrow keys work correctly

Elevation?

The elevation map on the edfel map hasn't been updated in ages, and I'd like to see how high up they are now. Anyone else found one anywhere? Tavella (talk) 21:31, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

You are right and we need a proper map on this like the water level before. I will try this soon, maybe tomorrow.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been mapping the journey from the start, piecing each segment end-to-end in Photoshop. There is no significant net elevation change until they started following the river. The net elevation change from image #1150 to now (#1818) is 1402 pixels = 210.2 feet (assuming a 40 px average height of Cueball and using 40 px = 6 feet). However, since this is a comic, one may assume a greater height than that actually depicted. The horizontal distance along the same river walk is 59516 pixels = 8927.4 feet (1.7 mi, 2.7 km). I don't have the distances along the sea. The average speed, using 1 hr/frame update, is 0.0025 mph, 0.0041 kph (at 5 min/frame update the speed increases to 0.0304 mph). Galois (talk) 22:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

What do we know by the beginning of June?

- thanks to Galois we do know they did travel around 3 km (NASA is getting better on this metric units).

- thanks to Galois we do know they did climb approx. 65 meters (maybe slightly more because 6 feet or 1.8288 meters for Cueball is maybe a little bit too much).

- they are still in real nature, the most technical devices we have seen is just wood.

- but they also did cross a road at the beginning of their travel.

- now both are heading uphill while the mountains still far away.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to think Cueball is shorter, I used 6 ft because it's convenient and yields longer distances. The tallest Baobob tree is 516 px (rescaled to the running comic) = 77.4 ft (23.6 m) using a 6 ft Cueball. Note that using a 5.5 ft (1.7 m) Cueball, the tree drops to 71 ft (21.6 m). The Wikipedia page [12] on the Grandidier's baobab states they can reach 25 to 30 m (80-100 ft) in height, 23.6 m is about right. Galois (talk) 23:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't follow this as religously as others so maybe I missed the obvious answer, but why is it assumed that we have seen all of the way they went? I alway thought the parts where they are hiking is like a "montage" in film, where lots of parts might be missing in between the snapshots we see. 193.171.69.65 (talk) 05:58, 6 June 2013 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

(please sign your posts - don't worry, we're all here out of a mutual enjoyment of the xkcd comics) Actually, I looked into the possibility a while back, but it didn't work. Randall runs 3-5 frame updates with the two walking across the same panel. As they leave one panel on the right, they enter the next on the left (and visa-verse for the trip back to the sunken castle). Additionally, I only came across three panels that didn't adjoin perfectly (one in the sand dunes and two trees that didn't continue into the next panel). Galois (talk) 11:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Image reference from late on the 67th day

At about 22:35 on the 67th day, the image reference "6fa2b361791e805aac0a89008a891e3999a0519ed870c1bc3dcc8dbff5e071d5.png" appeared for a time. It was after "f4e2276e4c47409412666b28be0cca75fedae3c182c4017932891c147004c720.png", followed by a few more of that reference and then by "133fddaecbdee3f5160771b68ce02cbc2b4b1c84a40faffb1bcaa6f75588edd0.png". At the time, I did not get a copy of the image, and it is not now available for download.
Did anybody else see this image, and does anybody have a copy of it?
--Divad27182 (talk) 20:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I am also confused, my download was also broken at that hour. 404 Not found.

It is at 1606:00 or image 1727 - still more confusing numbers. Randall could not do it much better.

So, we have an image here, but is it correct?--Dgbrt (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

My image number 1728 is 133fddaecbdee3f5160771b68ce02cbc2b4b1c84a40faffb1bcaa6f75588edd0.png. The image fits properly in sequence with the other images around it. Galois (talk) 22:32, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, apparently it was completely broken at that time. I just felt I needed to ask, since I wasn't downloading actual images at that time, just the references, and so I have a broken reference in my list. --Divad27182 (talk) 02:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Pictures and Time Collage

I opened a new page for the pictures: 1190: Time: Pictures. It's experimental and subject to (wiki-style collaborative) change. Galois (talk) 15:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I think "Cueball Walk images 1360-1378" is wrong. It looks more like if Cueball was walking perpendicularly to the image. DiEvAl (talk) 22:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

That's the way it was drawn. While Megan is still sleeping, Cueball takes a walk, gathers some berries, stops several times to look around, and then walks back to the tree. The walk and the tree scene probably don't connect directly. It appears that Cueball arises from under the tree, turns (left) away from the "camera" (frankly, I can't tell he is walking towards us or away from us... only Megan has hair, which tells us which way), and starts his walk. Galois (talk) 15:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Nice work Galois! How we can show this pictures at the comic page? Maybe with a smaller preview for a link to to the full size picture with a warning about this. But also I think it should be at a different page. Any ideas?--Dgbrt (talk) 20:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Good point! I took your advice. Galois (talk) 15:42, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Also posted at Galois (talk):
Thumbnails are not working at this moment. But nevertheless I think it's not a good idea to include that large pictures. My idea:

Create that big pictures, separated into some parts, remove Megan and Cueball and then change only the width to 1200 pixels. And one picture should cover all at the width of 1200 pixels. Scene 2 could be split into several collapsible parts with the terrain picture on top. Just an idea, what do you think?--Dgbrt (talk) 17:59, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Megan and Cueball sleeping deep for the first time

Maybe they will be disturbed by some flies or other animals, but now it's night... They will sleep because the first day is over. Good night!--Dgbrt (talk) 23:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

This is not the end of the first day. According to frame 1600 they walked along the sea for days. If the later timeline is similar then they've walked up the river for days as well.--Gerry (talk) 23:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

At frame 1600 Cueball says that they "walked along the sea for days". But at this comic they are walking along the river, the travel at the sea must happend before. Since they are walking again it seems both are sleepless.--Dgbrt (talk) 12:31, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

They also slept under the tree in images 1348-1352, Megan talked about that night in 1830-1832 (time 1709:00) "Megan: I heard chirps from the night sky once. I was looking at the stars one night and I heard peeping. - It was very quiet. - just a single chirp now and then. Cueball: Did you see anything? Megan: I thought a few stars flicker. - Nothing else." Galois (talk) 00:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The story from time 1709:00 also refers to things did happen before this comic did start.--Dgbrt (talk) 12:31, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree too, but not this time... there is a chick in the grass in the scene next to the tree where they slept. See Difference between frames 1375 and 1374 or "Chick in grass 1375" in 1190: Time: Pictures [13] in the Hidden Animals section. The same type of chick was right in front them in time 1709:00 (see "Chick in grass 1826"). Galois (talk) 13:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

They're coming back... in Frame 1928 we can see the two heading off following the small river with their knapsacks (or rucksacks) left behind by the tree where they slept. Galois (talk) 14:09, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Journey update: As of (right edge of) image 2103, they climbed 1290 pixels or 193.5 ft (59 m) from the place the two slept by the small river (image 1908). Galois (talk) 18:30, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Philosophical implications

I think the huge following that this comic has gathered - the amount of work by people like Aubron Wood and the guys at geekwagon, explainxkcd editors, general xkcd enthusiasts, the people at XKCD time wiki - raises some interesting questions. At this point we're not even clear how Randall is writing these comics: he may have designed them all from the start, or he may be writing 24 a day, going along with it, according to the natural progression of events and what has led up to now. It has interesting parallels with the design argument. It also makes you wonder about how it's all going to end. There are so many ongoing discussions - and have been from the start - about how the comic is going to conclude. Just as in real life we take so many different roads and never really know where we're going to end up. If we're continuing with the religious theme we could extend the metaphor even further, about what happens after we die. We don't know if we're going to just stop existing or if we're going to end up in some elaborate afterlife. We don't know what Randall's going to do - how long will the comic go on? Could it last his entire lifetime? We have no way of knowing. --Mynotoar (talk) 14:05, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe Randall is writing this as it goes along, preparing the scenes only a little bit in advance. The story (quest?) reads more like a series of isolated vignettes, but with a few themes being carried forward, such as the quest for the source of the rising sea. I'm here in homage to Randall's unique wit and humor, and having fun trying to second guess what he'll do next. I don't believe the setting is an actual place, but we have several clues that limit its location. I see this as a collection of disparate objects and events; some go together, some not, but with some running themes. Randall may be making some points (such as conservation, ecology, and not eating squirrels); although, I would have never filled a canteen from the small river without first boiling or purifying the water. Galois (talk) 14:27, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Are you living in tent? People living in tents for big amount of year (as these two apparently do) generally tend to dring water without purifying. .... on the other hand, those generally don't build castles from sand. And they DID mentioned steam bottle once ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Stillness of air

Anyone else notice how still the air is? In the frames I have looked at, the grass never moves, so there must be no wind. 174.27.36.133 12:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

In over 2000 frames, I have found only four that depict wind. I added them to the 1190: Time: Pictures page [14]. Galois (talk) 21:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Making extreme sport out waiting

Let's do 1017, but using current frame instead of a progress bar. Does anyone know what formula should we use for this? Something similar to the one in [[1017] won't work, because we don't know when (if ever) the Time will end. I was thinking about T = c + n * (1 hour), where n is current frame and c is a couple of days before the beginning of Time, but it seems too boring. --DiEvAl (talk) 14:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't figure out what you do mean. In Randall's words I just can say: Wait for it.--Dgbrt (talk) 16:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Madagascar theory

I'm still not sure that it is supposed to be a specific place, but going with the Madagascar theory, there is indeed a native Madagascar hedgehog -- the greater and lesser tenrecs.

That Madagascar trees are also imported to US. Hedgehogs are a famous pets in US, even when they do belong to Asia and Europe. We are still in the US, and more precisely around Utah. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Hedgehogs are found in many places. From the shadow comments, they are on a northern sea coast in the northern hemisphere, hence probably not Madagascar. There's something wrong with every possible location I checked. The Mediterranean Sea is rising because the water coming in from rivers is greater than that lost through evaporation [15] and is polluted [16], BUT a quick check has every possible northern coast covered with cities or agriculture. I lived in Salt Lake City for a little while. Antelope Island has oolitic sand on the north and west sides and is a mountain, but no major rivers or waterfalls[17]. The north coast is a boggy delta, except for a peninsula, which is covered with agriculture. Southern Utah is a better match and has waterfalls, but no sea. I gave up. Galois (talk) 18:04, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The sea thing is certainly a problem for any modern-day Utah theory, but the tree that recently came on-screen (frame 2145) could be intended to be Pinus longaeva, which would be appropriate to Utah (or many other parts of the Great Basin), high altitudes, and the comic theme. Oh, also, if you want a rising, large body of water near Southern Utah there's always Lake Mead. But it's probably not so large as to be mistaken for the sea. --Joe Decker

I'm not sure that current agriculture would be an issue. Unless they are play-acting or in some kind of _The Village_ setup, they seem unlikely to be current-day humans. They seem strangely ignorant of some obvious things and yet aware of others. There might be a few tribal peoples living in tents that would be unaware of the next river over, but they would be unlikely to be confused by birds nesting. Or be using trebuchets and European castle architecture in sandcastles. And if they genuinely walked for "days" along the shore, it seems unlikely to be a _The Village_ setup; that's got to be 20 miles even taking a leisurely trip for just two days, and probably more. Tavella (talk) 23:36, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

That place is surprisingly like the comic, especially when explored Expedition style. It has beaches, other rivers, baobabs, etc! And doesn't the fact that they slept overnight invalidate the northern hemisphere theory and mess with determining the walking direction by the sun? Despite all this, I doubt being in Madagascar does much for understanding the meaning of the comic. --Irino. (talk) 01:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

That Theory seems to be out of date by now - post-apocalyptic(?) mediteran sea it is... 212.202.64.10 04:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Jumped by a kitty

I was going to say how trollish that felt (because I was felling attached to the characters and the comic), but you know what? It's just a comic. And no, I don't think it's ending that way, Randall is random, but not THAT random (I think). I bet $10 that Megan will fetch some sort of stick or club and go golfing. --Fernandofig (talk) 00:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Alright guys, what's the species and where is it native to? Puma, mountain lion, lynx, jaguar, tiger, panther, leopard...

Well, if we're to believe that Randall is paying attention to the scale of the objects, then I don't think it's either of your options. That cat doesn't look much bigger than a domestic cat, so I think it's something close to an Ocelot. --Fernandofig (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2013 (UTC)u

Unless Megan and Cueball are kids, that would be an awfully large domestic cat. And from references like the cabin, they are adults or close to it in size. Ocelot's not a bad estimate, though. Tavella (talk) 01:01, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, in my defense, I didn't really said it was a domestic cat, but that it looked just slightly bigger than one. An Ocelot fits that description, I think, while being much smaller than a Puma. Btw, there goes Megan golfing! :) --Fernandofig (talk) 04:05, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Not a cougar (too small for one) as I think they grab their prey by the throat and hold on till it's dead, not just knock it over and sniff. Bobcat's out (too big). Besides, what's coming in on the right? 99.72.154.66 03:16, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Now I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor kitty. 99.72.154.66 05:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC) (p.s. "it didn't bite you?" -- More for it being a lonely lost pet?)

If this is Madagascar, then it would be a fossa ... but the head looks too big and cat-like. Perhaps a juvenile cougar/puma? Would help explain why it bit the backpack instead of Cueball's neck. Geographically, that or one of the ocelots / relatives would put us in South or North America. AH 209.74.126.175 14:00, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is everyone assuming the location corresponds to an actual modern day location (e.g. Madagascar)? Given that http://xkcd.com/505/ is staged on an infinite plane full of rocks we shouldn't limit our search to the real, simply the rational. 216.239.45.91 14:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

This doesn't make any sense. Rationals are (or are isomorphic to) a subfield of reals, so if we limit our search to rationals we also implicitly limit it to reals. But it's safe to assume that they are in some group. My intuition tells me that this group is a vector field (most likely R^3), but obviously we shouldn't rely on that. --DiEvAl (talk) 15:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Hahaha! Just wondering if those were Abelian Grapes that Cueball and Megan were eating. "What's purple and commutes?" 1960s joke. Taibhse (talk) 09:43, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't necessarily think that it's an actual place, but some of the plant and animal references have been so specific as to make you wonder if they mean something. Tavella (talk) 19:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The sand castle Megan built at the top matches the Paris Disneyland castle; thus, either Megan had seen the castle before or Randall just thought it was a neat looking castle to copy. There are other elements that limits the date to fairly recent, some more so than others. I don't think Randal is using an actual place, but rather an amalgam of elements from many places. As for myself, I prefer abstract algebra. Galois (talk) 17:18, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Given that they're been hiking up into the mountains, my guess is that it was a mountain lion... which is also known as a cougar. Or puma. --Druid816 (talk) 08:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

As we now know that they are in the Mediterranean region, a Eurasian lynx or an Iberian lynx look quite good guesses but the cat in the comic has a tail that is too long and it doesn't have ear tufts. I guess if it is far enough in the future, the distribution of animals could have changed, so it might be Caracal (desert lynx), a Serval or an African golden cat. Of course if it is even further in the future, it might be a whole new species that doesn't currently exist.NHSavage (talk) 21:11, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

They're back to the kitty! Will it run, or does it bear a grudge? 121.72.165.205 04:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I still want it to be a lonely lost pet, maybe a zoo refugee. 99.72.154.66 04:59, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It ran. Is it preparing another surprise attack? Time will tell. (Ha ha.) 121.72.165.205 06:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 2188

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned or come up with theories about Frame 2188. I guess we now know that it was the cat stalking them.
--68.147.179.172 01:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Same here, the image I clipped (2231) has the figure (or whatever) and now it's gone. It must have been unintentional, and later corrected. Maybe the "whatever" or parts of it will show up later. Galois (talk) 14:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll take a shot... The bottom part is curved and aligns perfectly with Cueball's head in Photoshop, just cutoff on the left (and the right as it goes out of frame). The rounded slice at the top matches Megan's head as well. The full slice does not match any scene to date (the only one close is 1885 with Megan in the tree, but that's not it); thus, it must be a slice from a future scene (or maybe part of a template with assorted characters). Galois (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I was going with "sprites from Pitfall, while the reader was distracted by the action", but the "template fragment" theory certainly works better. ;-)

The great re-encoding

After noticing the snafu around 2231-2232, I whent and re downloaded the full set from imgs.xkcd.org and what I downloaded today doesn't match what I downloaded before (generally when they were <24h old). Everything from 1068 back seems to be a pixle match for what is there now but have different MD5s and is generally smaller. 216.239.45.91 20:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

My observations suggest that XKCD images are routinely optimized a few hours after posting. In short, it is normal for the image to change without the pixels changing. --Divad27182 (talk) 03:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Another Theory

Can it just be about Mr. Munroe's life? I don't know many personal details, but it would be easy to draw about and still be important without being funny. --Irino. (talk) 04:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

A fair number of people have speculated that it's a metaphor for something personal, yeah. He's married and his wife had a bout with cancer a year or so back, so there's been some concern that the whole 'inescapable tide' may be a less than happy thing. Tavella (talk) 19:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

This is beginning to look a lot like the plot outline of a quest video game. --deepfatfriar 17:34, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Only one day to reach the top of the Mountain

At frame 2305 Cueball mentions that it's only one day to reach the top and at frame 2308 Megan says that they will not much farther away from home when being there. This means the comic shows no night sequences but it did run for many days in the world of them. Maybe each real day is also a day in this comic.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It sure took a long time to build the original sandcastle then.--Gerry (talk) 20:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But now we have the prove that the voyage did last many days while there was no hint of any night hiatus. They did sleep but we couldn't see.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Remember there was a fadeout while they were starting off on the journey, and later they say the walked for days along the shore. So that could be the bulk of the distance. Tavella (talk) 01:51, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's like the world for Game of Thrones but s/Seasons/Days/ I.e. veritable length days? 216.239.45.91 23:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather think they started their journey several days before they reached the beach and started building the castle. I feel that what we are observing is a single day of their adventure - building a castle in the morning, walking along the shore and the river in early afternoon or even a little before noon, taking a short nap in the late afternoon and walking uphill again. The darkening of last few frames may be the evening coming. 89.174.214.74 13:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

It's getting cloudy.

Upper right corner of Frame 2352? Also the other three corners have something going on. 99.72.154.66 03:25, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

May Randall is reading this Wiki and saw the complain about still air :-) Joggl (talk) 06:09, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe Megan is getting cold because a storm's coming. Maybe they don't know about storms in the hills or mountains. Note that the "people in the hills" where they live are perhaps not friendly, according to the earlier conversation about going on up the mountain: Cueball: "We can't be more than a day or so from the top. There may be people there." Megan: "Like the people in the hills?" Cueball: "We're a long way from there." If the people of the hills back home are unfriendly, Cueball and Megan may have no experience of hill weather. Taibhse (talk) 11:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the image diff on GeekWagon it looks like they are experiancing a solar eclipse.162.5.71.176 15:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

No, that white round object in the cloud is just moving and is also getting smaller. I've no idea what it could be.--Dgbrt (talk) 15:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

It isn't getting smaller, it's just having to go through clouds of increasing thickness, making its domain of whiteness smaller. And it's moving because something like fifteen minutes just went by. --Irino. (talk) 15:53, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

You are right, we see a sunset. My first statement was about the "solar eclipse" theory, what is definitively not happen.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

We also effectively had a bit of a timeskip there -- it takes several hours for the sun to lower that much. Also confirms they are walking north (which I think was the going assumption already.) Tavella (talk) 22:51, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The rate that the sun sets at depends on the "length" of the "lens" being used. Based on 360 deg/day motion and a apparent width of 0.5 deg, the sun moves it's own diameter every 2 minutes. 99.72.154.66 03:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The images now fading to black, going to the dark night. I am hoping we will get a new scene on top of that mountain, but maybe we will just seeing them awakening below a tree. We just have to wait... Stay tuned as me!--Dgbrt (talk) 23:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

But maybe the Moon will shine and the fade to black does stop.--Dgbrt (talk) 23:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe we will switch back to Beret Girl. Who knows? We'll see when we see. Taibhse (talk) 08:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

@Taibhse, It seems to me that you just explained the entire point of the cartoon. 74.174.17.194 13:57, 27 June 2013 (UTC)ALurker

Where are the astronomical freaks? Can't we find out where they are depending on the stars? Joggl (talk) 17:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

~30 deg north based on the direction of motion. 216.239.45.91 17:57, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

When Bootes is setting around sunset in the US it is August or September.--Gerry (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I can't identify Boötes so far but the bright star following the path of the sun isn't a star: It's the planet Venus, here as the "Evening Star".--Dgbrt (talk) 20:28, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Not Bootes; it's not on the ecliptic, which these stars are. Tavella (talk) 22:46, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the upper constellation on 2394 is the Sagittarius. The lower one, which can be seen better on 2393 is the tail of the Scorpion constellation. The two bright stars close to each other above the tree are Shaula and Lesath. The brightest star is a planet, probably Venus. The only think bothers me is that there is an other star very close to Ascella in Sagittarius, which should not be there... Maybe an other planet? --80.98.250.115 21:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think you may have it. I passed over Sagittarius at first, because they looked too close together, but I think I was overestimating the scale. Virgo and Gemini both contain something close to the Y pattern of four bright stars, but the surrounding stars aren't right. If it's a planet, it would have to be naked eye visible but not as bright as Ascella,and I don't think there is anything that fits, which is a pity, because we could work out possible years. Tavella (talk) 22:26, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing further, I'm even more convinced. If you get a star map in the right orientation, you can see that the rest of Scorpio is becoming visible just above the horizon in Frame 2393. And the arc of stars the three consellations are 'facing' matches up with the Serpent and Ophiuchius, including the visual binary of Delta and Epsilon Ophiuchi. If you look at a sky map for Nov 7, 2013, Venus is in about the right configuration. Tavella (talk) 23:14, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Star Map

Is someone already stitching together a map of the stars as they move through the frames? I could do it, but I'm too lazy *g*.
And if we have that, the relative position of the sun to the stars should be sufficient to determine the day of the year (depending on the accuracy of the drawings) and probably, assuming the first bright dot was indeed Venus, we might even be able to determine if the story takes/took place this year. Maybe other astronomical objects show (or don't show) and help to further narrow down the time. --92.76.250.121 00:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

From the position of the sun, Venus is at or close to greatest eastern elongation from the sun. Assuming that the constellations we are looking at are Sagittarius and surroundings (and the new stars coming into view continue to match this), the sun is located around Virgo. From the angle of the ecliptic, they are at 30 degrees north, and thus it would have to be around the beginning of November, as that's when Virgo sets with the sun at 30N. So it could be a year when Venus hits the greatest eastern elongation in late October/early November. Which happens this year, but it can't be this year as the moon isn't right -- there would be a crescent moon next to Venus. It would have to be at new moon or waning moon, and that puts it after 2037. Of course, there are a lot of assumptions and estimations in that calculation. Tavella (talk) 02:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, for the moon it could be 2029, but there's another blocking factor: Mars should be next to Venus in 2037. And for the next few eight year cycles, some combination of Mercury, the moon, and Saturn should be showing up between Venus and the Sun before the stars do. So it looks like 2053 would be the first matching date. And the next date after that 2085 - it precesses forward a bit each year, so it would be Nov 12 by 2085. Seems a bit late for grapes and hiking without any thought of shelter, but if it's 30N it is likely a pretty warm area. Tavella (talk) 02:59, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Going backwards, the first one with no planets is 1981, but there would be a nearly full moon, and that scene does not look illuminated by a full moon. The most recent one with no planets and no moon interfering would be 1949. But that's purely my amateur estimation using the online AstroViewer. Tavella (talk) 02:59, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I wandered over to the forum, and they agree with our conclusion of Sagittarius, and one of them had a interesting observation: Antares is gone. It should be the brightest thing in this view apart from Venus, and you can see the two stars that should flank it appear at Frame 2392, between Cueball's head and the tree, but no Antares. Which suggests that this is set sufficiently far in the future that Antares has gone supernova (which it is due to do.) Tavella (talk) 06:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Even more suggestive of a far future: certain of the stars in the Scorpion appear to have moved. If you go to Hipparchos [[18]] and enter RA 260.4, Dec -42, and V(lim) 4.4, you will get the stars in the head and part of the body of the Scorpion. If you run it forward several thousand years, you'll see that the high-motion stars match with the distortions in the XKCD sky.Tavella (talk) 08:05, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

One last thing (for the moment): The angle of the sun and planets are what they should be for c. 30-33 degrees N, but to get the constellations angled the right way, it's closer to 12 degrees north. This may be precession, which could also explain the grapes in what would be currently by the stars the beginning of November -- the vernal equinox may have precessed forward, resulting in the sun being in Virgo/Libra in summer rather than fall. 15,000 years would put it in Libra in June, for example Tavella (talk) 16:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Where in the world are Megan and Cueball?

Venus marking the path of the ecliptic tells us that we are at about 30 degrees north (my quick-ass calculation came up closer to 31 or 32 degrees north.) They are walking east with the ocean to the south of them, and they are following a large river north into hills and mountains that apparently are less than a day's walk north.

So if it's Earth, where could they be? There's not a lot of south-facing coasts around 30N. The only large one is the Gulf Coast of the US, but there's not much in the way of hills much less anything you could call a mountain close to the shore. The only exception I can really see is maybe around Mobile, which at last has some hills. There's the north end of the Persian Gulf and of the Gulf of California, but for both of those the hills are east of of the most obvious large river. Though the Gulf of California would make sense in other ways -- rivers that only run to the sea in the wet season, for example. There's South Korea, but the southern coast of that is broken up into a fringe of islands and peninsula, there's not really a solid stretch of coast to walk east along. Tavella (talk) 00:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

If, as hypothesized above, this is taking place a few thousand years into the future, might not the coastlines have changed? (Especially since the "sea" seems to be rising.) I wonder if we could find the proper configuration of hills and a mountain even in absence of a body of water to the south. 69.123.166.176 15:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

All the stars are following the same parallel path through the sky. Shouldn't the stars should be following a circular path centered on the north star, and the planets if any be following roughly the path of the sun and moon? --deepfatfriar

Based on my analsys (sicking a post-it to my screen so that it partially obscures Venus) things do seem to be curving (Venus is less obscured, then more, then less as I step through frames). 99.72.154.66 03:54, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

So, how far away are we viewing them from? We know (about) how tall Cueball is and the stars give us an angular ruler so we should be able to figure that out. Also, when will sunrise be? 99.72.154.66 03:54, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Someone mentioned the Clock of the Long Now, and the 10,000 Year Clock would fit in a number of ways. The Texas original one is at the right latitude, and the Sierra Diablo mountains where it is are near a dried-up inland sea, which presumably could be a sea again, and an inland sea could rise much faster than the world's oceans. And it would fit with the title "Time", and explain the multi-thousand year future setting.

Has anyone been able to map exactly where the sun is on the stars? That would show where in the precession sequence we are. If it's in Libra, for example 15,000 years forward the sun would set in Libra around June at 31-32 degrees north at that point. Which would explain the grapes and the camping without shelter. Tavella (talk) 20:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

If the night does map the real world...

If the stars are real I'm sure it still does map to the current time frame of this comic. Venus and also Jupiter (even also Mercury, but hard to see) did follow the sun at dawn. Tomorrow I will have to fix my (Linux) xOrg for running Stellarium or Celestia. So for now I'm only on heavens-above, which is still not accurate enough for this cloudy comic sky at night.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:37, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I've made a compare of the changes in Scorpio over the next 15K years, and the sky in Time. [19]. It matches pretty well, though I think the fastest moving star hasn't moved quite as far. So my current prediction: they are in the Sierra Diablo mountains in Texas (or what was Texas), climbing towards the 10,000 Year Clock observatory, about 14,000 years from now. Tavella (talk) 22:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

So is Beret Girl a mysterious time traveler? Taibhse (talk) 23:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

What is the source for your picture, Photoshop? Please tell us more.--Dgbrt (talk) 17:32, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Tavella. Stellarium was my own first attempt too, but my xOohhhhgrrrrg did crash. NVIDIA on Linux is still a mess.

Go North to Dakota or even Canada to find a location where a 30 degree sunset can happen.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:14, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Very nice pictures, Tavella! What's the meaning of the three red stars? Thanks in advance. 79.98.2.71 22:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

They are marking the three stars with the highest proper motion in the constellation (well, one of them, the top one, is a small companion star in the constellation zone rather than being formally in the constellation.) I just installed GIMP on this computer and was too lazy to go find the arrow plugin. Tavella (talk) 23:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure i remember seeing a shooting star in one of the frames but it doesn't seem to be in any of the recorded frames? 75.181.22.10 19:33, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it was a fast series of pictures so it didn't get caught. Here's an animation of the sequence: [20]Tavella (talk) 23:11, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can you give us some hashes and timestamps? --Divad27182 (talk) 03:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Day 97 7:00 & 8:00 Cueball is seen washing his hands in subsequent two frames? 24.91.69.220 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Meteor frames.

There were five meteor frames that appeared in very quick succession recently. How should they be numbered?

"appeared in very quick succession": I assume they actually appeared on the hour, just like all the others (except for first days), and as they are currently listed in our table? Mark Hurd (talk) 12:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

No, they appeared on the minute between 20:20 and 20:24 UTC on 29 June. That's how they're listed here. Crimethink (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I was looking at the hours +2441 through +2445! However, in my defence, I was fighting the database error when I first thought I noticed this. Mark Hurd (talk) 12:48, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Numbering them 2440a to 2440e is ok. And geekwagon seems to be broken at some more more frames right now.--Dgbrt (talk) 17:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Uh, it would be great if we could number frames in actual chronological number order, not appending letters onto the ends of the filenames. It makes it easier for scripts to access images with a consistent naming scheme. Davidy²²[talk] 15:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

We have already been appending letters onto the ends of filenames, with frames 256P, 257P, and 258P. Patzer (talk) 15:52, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

And those are problematic with scripts already. More special cases to account for are not fun. I've only let those alone because fixing the problem would mean shifting more than a thousand filenames now, and I didn't notice it originally until it was 200 frames too late. Davidy²²[talk] 16:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I have two ideas on this problem:

a) Put that special frames into an extra table at the bottom of that specific days, or

b) Add an extra column to the tables containing a sequence number. This would be much of work.

The meteor does seem to be a part of the comic, so it probably should still be inline with the rest of the frames. We'll only need to shift 40-odd image names to fix this, it shouldn't be too onerous. I'll do it tomorrow morning. Davidy²²[talk] 17:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

This will be good for your scripts but not for mine. We will be also out of sync to other sites. But if you will do that tell me where day 101 should start. I have to change a counter at my script.--Dgbrt (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks for your chaos, day 101 starts NOW with 2526. Before your edit it would have been 2521. But 2531 is a little bit too much.--Dgbrt (talk) 12:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I can understand the desire for standardized numbering but I've been doing a lot of the image uploading recently using mscha's site as the source. I do it manually so it's already a pain, I don't think I can face having to do that extra little bit of arithmetic for each image to work out what the id should be on this site. Guess I'll be leaving it for the bots from now on. Crimethink (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Crimethink for your great work. This is still a mess, but we can't revert it. We are all trapped in someone's decision...--Dgbrt (talk) 13:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - I can see that. Just a shame that mscha decided to do it that way.Crimethink (talk) 13:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. The idea of naming that pictures as 2440a to 2440e was first. Other sites like geekwagon are also out of sync. Unless we do use the timestamp at the file name it will be more mess in the future, I am sure.--Dgbrt (talk) 13:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

WOW, you must have much TIME ;)--Dgbrt (talk) 15:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

How do we even know that it's a meteor? Maybe Mr. Munroe has finally decided to use his best idea ever? Then it was just a damaged space station falling through the atmosphere. Also the mountain they are climbing is actually a volcano and the sea is rising because of all the tyrannosaurs swimming in it. --DiEvAl (talk) 21:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

This comic is just showing the real world we all do know. Look at this Perseids meteor shower at the next days, the peak should be around August 10 or 15. Most of that particles you can see as a bright meteor are smaller than one millimeter. It's only the vast velocity what causes this great visual effect.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Since we r watching the scene toward west, shouldn't the sky appear darker near the horizon, with respect to the sky above, at sunrise? (I'm asking here but of course I'm not referring to your animated gif but to the xkcd scene itself...) 217.200.201.97 11:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

When the sun rises on East the horizon at the opposite side is darker than the rest of the sky. When the sun is high enough you will not recognize this any more.--Dgbrt (talk) 12:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep Dgbrt, my point is that in the comic sequence we can see the full path from the dead of night to the morning through the dawn: why Randall depicted a shade of light coming from the horizon and not from the sky above? Is it a realistic scene? Mlejnas (talk) 07:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

These clouds moving with the sky could be the milkyway. FG 10:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep, FG, but that's at the sunset, I'm talking about the sunrise (on the other side of the sky). Mlejnas (talk) 09:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

FG, look at my first statement at this section here. But Mlejnas is talking about the sunrise after the Milky Way already had disappeared.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

New picture naming rule

Is there any BOT here understanding the new naming? I'm missing many picture uploads, I will not do this by manual because that's stupid. This is still a job for a bot.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Sry, I was on vacation for a week, and I haven't resumed my bot yet because of that meteor. IMHO, we should get in touch with the admins of geekwagon, aubronwood and mscha in order to re-sync the frame numbers. Does anyone know whether any of them is already active here? --SlashMe (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I had an account xkcd forum but found their rules complex so I generally communicate here or through email. I like the idea of a standard frame count between all the sites. Currently geekwagon is limited to a number instead of an alphanumeric frame number like mscha uses. However this can be changed. My two cents is a frame number should be the number in which the frames were shown regardless of what time they were displayed (I like simple), but I am open to ideas. --Deplicator (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Geekwagon have now changed their numbering to the system used here. Patzer (talk) 05:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I fixed it to include the meteor frames. They were missed because the script runs every 5 minutes. Would have done it sooner but I was out of town.--Deplicator (talk) 17:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Derrick

What is it? Sort of looks like on oil derrick, but of course it is not. What is the mechanical bits up top? --68.147.179.172 08:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The ladder that goes up to the middle level but not the top and the wheel on that level suggest to me that it is supposed to be turned by an operator, but I can't see what that would power or move -- there's no obvious lines that aren't support structure. Looks to me like we are panning toward something even taller, so maybe that will enlighten. Tavella (talk) 09:33, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The device looks to me like a sextant -- a telescope mounted on a gauged pivot. Possibly there is a second pivot at 90 degrees to the one we can see. The device might be used to measure the sea rise, if the sea can be seen from here. 24.158.67.232 12:30, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Megan does seem to be looking through it, so sextant or telescope seems likely. Tavella (talk) 19:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Could it have anything to do with the 10,000 Year Clock mentioned above? 173.195.5.167 13:37, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a great platform to build another sand castle. Too bad there's probably no sand...--Gerry (talk) 13:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

My guess is that the tower may semaphore tower that is under instruction (or abandoned) and part semaphore tower in a Semaphore_line. In Frame 2594 where Megan reports seeing flashes. Could those flashes be distant semaphore signals? Chongo (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

In frame 2686 we see more of these towers. Those may be part of a semaphore line that you suggest. 166.137.209.163 05:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's an telescope or something like this. Maybe they see the sea rising with this thing... Joggl (talk) 19:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

After seeing Frame 2803 I'm pretty sure these are triangulation points which historically were used for geodetics, see e.g. [23] (3.6MB, sorry only German text). --Chtz (talk) 21:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Out of breath -- higher than we thought?

I haven't done the exact calculations, but my impression from those we did that they have only climbed 300-400 cueball-heights, which would be only a couple of thousand feet. Doesn't it usually take more than that before you start getting oxygen effects? Could they have started at a higher elevation than we thought? Anyone have a current calculation for elevation gain? Tavella (talk) 22:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

They started at sea level, unless the body of water was not the ocean.--Gerry (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, but the speed of sea level rise strongly suggests their "ocean" is an inland sea, so they could be in an endorheic basin that is much higher than sea level, like the Great Basin in the US (where the second 10,000 year clock will be), or Lake Van in Turkey. Tavella (talk) 06:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The Great Salt Lake was proposed here before, it's at level 4,200 feet or approx. 1,283 meter. The mountains there are going up to a much higher level, you can get out of breath there. The level calculations may be wrong because Randall didn't show every part of the trip. There were more nights, but we could only see one.--Dgbrt (talk) 18:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The people they did find

Any ideas what the hats or hair cut does belong to?--Dgbrt (talk) 20:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

It's the wrong end of the river for them to be building a dam, but I'm wondering, with all the surveying equipment, if they are diverting more water into the basin that Cueball and Megan live in. But they seem like pleasant enough people, quick to help Megan. It's hard to be believe they would drown the area without checking to see if, y'know, people live there. Tavella (talk) 23:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

What if they're building a bridge? Are we too far from the Big River? 24.218.148.222 01:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this pair the Cueball and Meagan we've known from before? What impresses me is the level of ignorance this pair exhibits, compared to the couple we've come to know. This pair do not seem to understand oxygen starvation at higher altitudes, how tides work, etc. This almost flies in contradiction to the fact that, in the beginning, they were building sand castles. This presumes castles existed at some point in their own history if not currently. Castles indicate a certain level of knowledge and technology, which this current couple seem to lack knowledge of, to some large degree at least.
If this strip 'ends' at the level of technology we've seen thus far and hinted at by this new tribe of people, I would suggest this indicates a world wide (or at least very large area) collapse of a prior civilization.
Riprap (talk) 23:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, they certainly don't have access to wikipedia. As for the tides, I think we generally concluded that it is more likely a lake and they never saw it rise as fast as it did. --Chtz (talk) 08:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

So are they getting sleepy from the bad night's sleep or something more nefarious? 216.239.45.92 05:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Or are they brewing ent-draughts here? Watch to see whether Cueball and Megan start growing taller! Taibhse (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Language

Is someone trying to decipher what they are saying? It might be more or less some kind of substitution cypher, but I'm not sure yet which letters are actually the same (e.g. 1st in Frame 2663 and 1st in Frame 2664 are quite likely the same. But the last but ones in these frames just look close in my view (also to 9th in Frame 2671)). Sentences seem to end with the an ° or ¯ above the last letter. Chtz (talk) 09:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The ° or ¯ above the last letter appear to be a period or a question mark respectively.--Gerry (talk) 10:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 2676 is identical to the last two words of Frame 2668. Apparently that is the stuff they applied on Megan's leg. Chtz (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

We can't decipher because it's just Randalls invention. At 2545:00 we have a clear 69 at the last word.--Dgbrt (talk) 18:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 2806 is another hint that could mean "Yes." The rest of the dialog looks similar to Frame 2734. Hopefully, they meet the translator soon. --Chtz (talk) 21:27, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's possible to translate their language into pervect english by simple replacing their symbols by roman letters (the right way). For "water" we have an example. (talk) 17:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

What could the last word in Frame 2728 be then? It ends the same way as "water"/"drink", except for a ° instead of a ¯ over the last letter, but has an additional "3"-shaped letter at the beginning. I'm starting to believe that Randall put a bit more effort into designing this language. --Chtz (talk) 15:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It is clearly not a letter-per-letter cipher; I think Randall has been considerably cleverer than that. It looks like a (fictional) Semitic language, in which case individual characters could indicate syllables rather than letters, but I doubt that it is a simple cipher for English at the syllable level either. At this stage it is impossible to say how far he has gone in creating an original syntax, but I would note that we have seen the word that means "water" (or "drink") in at least two forms (a simple form used by Cueball, and a form with a kind of 3 at the beginning used as the last word of the Beanie's response to Cueball's picture). I'm confident the ¯ is simply a period, ° a question mark, and the double ¯ is an exclamation mark. The other stray marks could be other punctuation marks as well. KenBrown (talk) 15:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Provisionally, I took the "water" string with the '3' in front to be something like "sea-water." Taibhse (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Another reason why it's not a "letter-per-letter cipher" is that I'm pretty sure we've seen at least 3 distinct single character words. Note that almost all characters are reminiscent of arabic numerals. Mark Hurd (talk) 18:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Next speculation: could mean "(the) castle" and could mean something like "(move) to the castle" or "(to be) at the castle".
Maybe we should start a subpage for all language investigations. --Chtz (talk) 00:42, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Seconded. Also we need a template for putting stranglish text on this wiki. --DiEvAl (talk) 21:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed that translator often puts a ° or ¯ above last letter in some sentences, just like in stranglish (did we come up with a better name for it yet?). I think this confirms that ° and ¯ is stranglish punctuation. Also since stranglish has punctuation, it can't be substitution cipher applied to lojban. --DiEvAl (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

It also confirms that we were right about the meaning of the punctuation. ¯ is a period, and (as confirmed by the latest frame) ° is a question mark. KenBrown (talk) 10:06, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, in frame 2892 (permahash on XKCD), the girl with long hair seems to say "WHAT RIVER?", and instead of putting a "?", there is a "°" above the last "R". Jahvascriptmaniac (talk) 11:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

New Guy in City

How do we call the new guy that appears in Frame 2819? One Suggestion: Black Hat Stranger (He's clearly not Black Hat). --Chtz (talk) 14:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

And maybe calling them "stranger(s)" is actually not appropriate. How about "local(s)" or "native(s)"? --Chtz (talk) 16:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing the cake-house of the Big Translator Guy is going to look like a sandcastle, thus the Oh, Wow from Megan. Tavella (talk) 18:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

A long haired woman (former: The old guy) in Castle

Man that is an atrocious accent. 216.239.45.91 13:37, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Why are we assuming its a 'guy' again? 24.218.148.222 21:45, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I did edit the entire page (Old man -> is now the Long haired woman), but maybe I did miss some. The main cause of this fault was probably my guess that they did walk to an old man.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The stick figure in the drawing really did look like a bearded guy, so I think it's a reasonable mistake Tavella (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

At the drawings on the ground they did not show stick figures. The current pictures are real stick figures. So the bear is falling around far over the neck? It's a woman.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Passage of Time

I suppose it is safe to assume that the black frame (Frame 2698) represents some indeterminate passage of time, since we do see Cueball now speaking the language of the Beanie-Wearers. What is strange, and perhaps it is just Randall being lazy, is that if you compare the frames before and after the black frame, there is absolutely no changes to vegetation, and very few changes to anything else. Vegetation would have been the biggest culprit to a lengthy time interval. (Again, assuming it took some non-trivial amount of time for Cueball to learn the new language.) --68.147.179.172 20:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I assume only a few hours have passed. It seems rather that Cueball is only now learning his first word: "water." Presumably the response also means "Yes! water" so then he would know two words, but there is no reason to assume he knows any more than that yet.79.247.252.250 20:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. I jumped the gun. He's only learned a single word. So just a single sleep has passed. --68.147.179.172 22:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Cueball did talk something like "watr" and the stranger did correct him "No, water".

If you are right, then it looks like a substitution cipher to me. --DiEvAl (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

BTW: I think we should call this language "Stranglish" until we do not know what it is.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:21, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Or was that Cueball: "water" and Stranger: "Yes, water?" Taibhse (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Megan's backpack

Megan started wearing a backpack after they left the tower. They lost Cueball's backpack when the animal clawed it up, so he carried everything in Megan's to keep weight off her leg. That ointment must be good stuff if she's able to walk with a backpack. The locals must have given her a new one.--Gerry (talk) 01:50, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I noticed that. Apparently they gave/loaned her one of their bags. Even so, I notice she was the only one shown (Frame 2814) clambering up a small steep spot, so maybe she's not fully functional yet. Taibhse (talk) 11:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, I wonder what they did with their "telescope" that they lowered from the tower; and the little folded-up mini-tower. And for that matter, whatever that was leaning against the right leg of the tower from the beginning. All three things seemed to disappear just before they left the scene. They don't seem to be packing them. Taibhse (talk) 11:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I assume they have some kind of storage at that location to protect their equipment from weather and from animals. They also left some other bigger things, like the ladder and the water container, indicating that they appear to go there frequently. --Chtz (talk) 12:05, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Who are they?

If the Great and Powerful OZ steps out from behind a curtain, I'll upchuck. Castles imply a need for defense, yet our adventurous pair and the 'natives' both seem totally relaxed with the discovery of the other. No obvious caution shown, no attempt to discover which side they may be on, etc. In fact, the 'natives' appear to be experienced with the finding of new people and following an established procedure for dealing with them, hence the trip to the castle. If Meagan and Cueball had declined to follow, what would have taken place then? Just a guess but I would say, nothing, each to their separate way.

The one map view strongly suggests, to me, survey work using trigonometry (or some variation) to determine location. It would seem to be a case of figure the location first, get there, then see what you find. The greater and lesser circles are intriguing as well, along with the long, straight lines and other geometrical figures seen. Wish there was a bigger, clearer view of it.Riprap (talk) 00:11, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Not all large structures are castles. It could be a cathedral or temple or university. Only Megan called it a castle because of its resemblance to their sandcastle. The castle's inhabitants called it a squiggle-squiggle-squiggle.--Gerry (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

No they call it ;). The usage of merlons indicates that it shall have some defense purpose—OTOH, it could be purely decorative. The fact that they all seem very relaxed about meeting strangers and nobody (visibly) carries any kind of weapons or armor suggests the latter. --Chtz (talk) 07:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

So does the fact that there were obviously children playing under the watchful eye of the first person they encountered in the "city." No effort was made to protect children from possible inimical strangers, and no obvious defenses at the school/playground/whatever-it-is at the entry gate. The gate hat guy was very relaxed. (If the "telescope" towers are part of a communications system, they might already know in the city everything they think they need to know about trusting Cueball and Megan, of course.) Taibhse (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The question arises, what was the mission of the single stranger with the package/book/box/whatever, who met them on the way, spoke a few words, and continued on toward the tower that the group had just left. Could have been a replacement watcher on the mountain. But then why did all three strangers need to leave the post and come to the city with Cueball and Megan? Taibhse (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I think most of that conversation was "Hello" and "Good bye" or some variants of that. --Chtz (talk) 10:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably the "strangers" ought to be called the "castle people" since that is how Megan and Cueball seem to think of them. Taibhse (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

How about "mountain people"? I agree that "stranger(s)" does not seem appropriate anymore—after all, they are at least a local majority. --Chtz (talk) 10:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the castle is there to defend humans against other creatures. So other humans are always welcome, even if they don't wear silly hats.134.102.219.242 12:58, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

That would still hardly explain the merlons—unless these creatures are somehow able to shot at higher ranges. Maybe they are currently at peace with all their neighbors, but expect a war in the future. (BTW: Greetings colleague! (According to your IP-address)) --Chtz (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I was speculating about some language like Esperanto or Lojban, encrypted with a simple substitution cypher. But I have not investigated that further. --Chtz (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

They could be adding to an extant structure - historically not an uncommon practice. So the merlons could be historic. As a side note, are there levers and pivots in the glass window? Maybe this is the temple of engineering?? ~~rbnm

Or just using past motifs. Look at all the Grecian columns and medieval merlons and gargoyles and what-not that went into subsequent architecture. Nothing is more full of tradition (right along with innovation) than architecture. As for the "temple of engineering" it might just be that the whole city is the "Engineers." (Not Larry Niven's Engineers.) Whatever their role, they might be causing the sea level to rise through an engineering project, thinking that no one lives down by the sea. Taibhse (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Those might be "levers and pivots." They might also be telescope mounts and astronomical objects. It's a very interesting window. Taibhse (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

It's interesting that the castle is mostly underground. I wonder if the "little houses" also extend underground? And I wonder if this is a sign this is a very hot climate for the Beanies / Long-haired woman (I like the idea of naming her Hypatia, as was suggested elsewhere.) If it's hot for them up on the mountain where it is significantly cooler to Cuegan, maybe that explains why they didn't think there were people down in the sea basin. Tavella (talk) 22:55, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Underground, an interesting theory but, many such structures had several levels below ground level, so as to reach the bedrock wherein to support the massive stone structure above. Once dug, why waste it, especially if it provided a comfortable environment? Still, the temperature theory is interesting.
If one takes the images with the partially obscured text and play with the brightness and contrast, you can make out many more words, which do not seem to be spoken aloud. Are these sub-conscious thoughts dealing with translation or something a tad more sinister? (I just saw the image change over at :40 after the hour. Just a hiccup on my browser or are these frames speeding up?)Riprap (talk) 23:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone transcribed the blurred English words? Having trouble with a few.98.201.4.16 13:04, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Just created a page to address this topic. See Translator. If someone could wikify that, that'd rock. I'm wiki-dumb and it shows on that page. --1292 (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Translator's Blurry Text

Since a lot of the stuff the translator is saying is hard to read, I figured we should have a place to get everyone's opinions on it. So I made a Translator page where it can be discussed. 74.95.85.209 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I make that out as "What is forty? My numbers are no same." Riprap (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Meagan and Cueball explain why they are there. In reply I read it as "You do not know. I make sea rise." Riprap (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The main Explain XDCD page has all the text of the whole comic and is doing a pretty good job with the blurred text Scene 3 Inside Castle--Gerry (talk) 18:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

This page can be used for investigations, but the images should zoom in much more on the text. The final explain has to go here for sure: Scene 3 Inside Castle--Dgbrt (talk) 19:06, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I added links to the images from the main transcript. Perhaps the translator page should be deleted. Individual panes/phrases can be debated on the image's page, and updated in the main transcript.--Waitforit (talk) 20:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

And I did delete it, we just need a link to this experimental page, that's enough. And the pictures still need some more improvements. At transcript we basically only show the text.--Dgbrt (talk) 20:17, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Why the sea is rising

Now we know why the sea is rising. I wonder if the castle people connected the two seas intentionally, or if it was an act of nature.--Gerry (talk) 18:43, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

the way the long haired woman says there was a great ?????? seems like an natural thing, maybe an earthquake that shut the gibraltar passage 212.202.64.10 04:44, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but that was the closing of the passage 5.96 million years before our present time. Hair Woman is surprisingly knowledgeable about the evolution of hominids, and when her ancestors "first learned to walk upright" about that time. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution. Taibhse (talk) 01:27, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

As for the opening of the passage in Cueball/Megan/Hair Woman time, H.W. says "When we discovered that the sea was ???/flowing under the bank we tried to shore it up. We failed." No indication what, if any, geological or human-caused event may have started it, and no need for there to be one, actually. No reason it couldn't have been gradual seepage even by geological measure, let alone human measure. Taibhse (talk) 01:27, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you know where you are?

Aw yea, finally! I just hope that we don't get another 500 frames with 2 bits of dialogue (like when they left the beach) Bdemirci (talk) 22:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing we are less than 100 feet above the "higher" sea. Sort of a dead-sea kind of difference (>1k ft) 216.239.45.91 22:05, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

So they are in the Mediterranean Sea. We can see Italy and to the left the Strait of Gibraltar leading to the Atlantic ocean. Would this have been thousands of years ago? 206.191.28.43 01:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)dbuck

Which makes me wonder if we're in the far future. Castles and such large architecture is only a few thousand years old. So was there an earthquake that closed the Straights of Gibraltar again, and the Mediterranean dried up? And it's now filling up again?--Gerry (talk) 01:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 2909 confirms that this is the future, as it refers to it happening before, when our ancestors ("parents") were learning to walk upright, i.e. 3-6 million years ago. KenBrown (talk) 06:44, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Is the castle Chateau D'If in France? --203.0.215.2 01:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

It does resemble Chateau D'If. [25]. The distant future is sounding more reasonable than the distant past. 206.191.28.43 01:48, 19 July 2013 (UTC)dbuck

That certainly looks like the modern Mediterranean sea, now doesn't it? 24.22.89.85 02:47, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Not only that, if you look at the map which shows the channel, the location of the castle is highlighted and it does correspond to the location of Chateau D'If. --203.0.215.2 04:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is any doubt. The castle is the Chateau d'If. The correspondence on the map to Marseille harbor is exact. The map and the outline of the castle are pretty explicit, including the depiction of the Strait of Gibraltar as the "passage" between seas. So if the level of the Atlantic is anywhere near our own, they will end up on the Île d'If. If higher, who knows. Taibhse (talk) 05:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a future version of Julian May's "The Many-Colored Land." Taibhse (talk) 05:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Cueball and Megan have walked quite a long distance. On Hair Woman's map their home appears to be due south of If, same longitude, and roughly at the latitude of Sassari, Sardinia. A minute of latitude is a nautical mile, essentially, and they walked a polygonal path, not a straight line north; a couple hundred nautical miles, at least. That's a long walk. Taibhse (talk) 05:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

What if this is the map from http://what-if.xkcd.com/53/ where the Earth's oceans had been drained? That shows the Strait of Gibraltar having been cut off from a now much-receded Mediterranean sea!155.95.80.253 15:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if the flag in frame 2944 (and 2812) is intended to be a marker for the new sea level? 173.212.109.235 19:15, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Assuming this is the Mediterranean sea[26], the predicted sea level map in frame 2907 shows that the Balearic Islands will become completely submerged. Since the highest point on the Balearic Islands is 1432 meters above sea level [27], and Chateau D'If isn't nearly as high, wouldn't Chateau D'If become completely submerged as well? Or maybe the Translator just omitted the Balearic Islands from the map. I'm guessing the latter is true. JimmyK4542 (talk) 21:50, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

"How many people strong are you?"

Am I the only one who finds the "strangers" a little sinister? Especially this question. It reminded me of the scene in Invader Zim when he asks the teacher about Earth'd defences... 77.87.179.62 07:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

No, you're not the only one. Megan reacted that way when Hair Woman asked them for their bags, for example. Both our protagonists looked uncomfortable when she sent away the three individuals that had helped them and brought them to the castle. And remember the hill people, and the discussion between M and C of the people on the mountain being -- maybe, hopefully -- different, since they are a long way from the hills. Also Hair Woman said "Yes! Good." when she understood the number 40. The suspense is intentional, I am sure. Taibhse (talk) 08:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Also when Cueball was talking about the people in the hill where their river comes from Megan said, "They don't like us," implies that there is some level of antagonism between peoples in this world and that they didn't know what to expect from the castle people.--Gerry (talk) 08:39, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

An alternate interpretation of "Yes! Good." would be "only 40 will have drowned." 216.239.45.91 13:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The "Oh" and "OH" just after indicate she didn't know they weren't there and was taken aback that they weren't even aware. 121.72.165.205 10:50, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I interpreted it as "Yes! Good. I understand, I get it." Caraway (talk) 15:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Surveying equipment

I'll bet their instruments are intended to judge the level of the Atlantic and to determine if they will be an island or completely swamped. They were also used to draw the map of their guess about the future sea level.--Gerry (talk) 08:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

According to frame 2605, the Beanies could see Cuegan's home. But the beanie leader claims they did not spot them. Further indication of malicious intent? 212.219.143.98 15:26, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

2605 shows that Cueball and Megan knew where there home was, to point to it, but not necessarily that they could /see/ anything. No instruments appeared to be mounted in that tower. Taibhse (talk) 17:51, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Title text

When did the hovertext change to "RUN."? --deepfatfriar 20JUL13

Great catch! I wonder what else we missed... (You can sign your posts by typing 4 ~'s in a row) Bdemirci (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Checked out the Wikia page. Luckily, we didn't miss much. The title text is "Wait for it." up until this frame (exclusive): [28] That frame has a text of "...", and all frames since have read "RUN." Bdemirci (talk) 17:06, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 3076 has the text back to "...". When did it change? JimmyK4542 (talk) 02:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Now (frame 3077 at geekwagon) it's back to '...'71.212.147.246 03:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

And a brief investigation shows it's been that way since 3072gw.71.212.147.246 03:42, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The story of Gibraltar

Did the learner/teacher/leader/ruler know the truth? She did some guesses and used a map that their people had found. I can't imagine their parents did travel 2.000 kilometers to Gibraltar, Megan and Cueball must have walked to a level more than 1.000 meters above their home, and also several hundreds of kilometers. A Cougar does not belong to Europe; they were walking to a higher level, running out of breath. At sea level? I'm pretty sure this story is still not solved.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:49, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

People can have trouble with elevation differences as low as 1500m. It's a common problem where I live (at 1640m). If the estimates of the vertical distance traversed are wrong because Randall has been imprecise, maybe they're that far up.71.212.147.246 00:04, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The castle is at sea level, though (+/- 100m given than the strip is apparently 14,000 years in the future.) I don't think one would have trouble breathing at sea level, even if they live one thousand meters below sea level. --68.147.179.172 05:38, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

We don't know that it was a cougar though, do we? That was just people's assumption. It could have been a lynx, or some other big feline. ~Therrufying 83.233.5.126 21:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I just did say: "this story is still not solved". Maybe the Cougar is wrong or even much more. Did we follow them on a journey of a couple of hundred kilometers? I'm still not convinced in that. But when they will successful use their stolen maps it could be a prove (or not, we haven't seen that local maps jet). Nevertheless, we know their castle is flooded.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Now that we have their location, did anyone try to match it up against the night sky from Scene 2 - Part 6 in order to see how far in the future the action might be taking place? It should be easier to make more accurate predictions now, right?--Michael85 (talk) 23:46, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Please do not start a new topic for each post here.--Dgbrt (talk) 00:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

And since you do not read, this story is NOT solved.--Dgbrt (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I followed closely this whole thread ever since it started, but I haven't joined the discussion until now. Anyway, I haven't seen any update to the star map investigation and I was curious. Sorry for barging in.--Michael85 (talk) 18:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

There is a nice artist's conception of the Zanclean Flood at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Roger_Pibernat_-_landscape_-_messianic_med-1024x768.jpgTaibhse (talk) 05:45, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
It's not quite the same configuration as Randall's sea basin, but similar. The flood has its own wiki page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood. I really do not think there is any doubt that Randall's story takes place in a far-future (possibly with liberties taken) Mediterranean Basin, and Hair Woman's castle is the Chateau d'If under restoration. The original Messinian Salinity Crisis (q.v.) is estimated to have taken a thousand years or so to stabilize once the Gibraltar (and possibly other) passage(s) closed, presumably as a result of tectonic activity under the influence of the two opposing continental plates colliding at the site of the present Mediterranean Sea. Taibhse (talk) 05:45, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I do believe it quite likely that Hair Woman's people's ancestors/forbears already were spread as far west as Gibraltar, which would explain why her people know about the Atlantic seeping in, and then flowing, through the barrier. She said they attempted to reinforce the barrier, but failed, so certainly they were there at Gibraltar in the "present time" of the story. And to draw ("build" she said) the outlines on the map, they had to have information about the second sea basin on the other side of Italy-Sardinia and the outlines of what we call the Adriatic, etc. Taibhse (talk) 05:45, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The sea they are use to must be rather hypersaline for them to consider the incoming water (from the Atlantic?) to be be "fresh"

It sounds like they're used to water which is salty enough to float on. In any case, hypersalinity makes sense if it's the mostly-dried-up remnant of the Mediterranean.129.22.117.158 19:11, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if "Oh, OH" meant she knew a way to rescue the 40 people by getting word to someone with a boat. Radio?--Gerry (talk) 00:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

PNG time chunks changed on the xkcd server

The images mirrored http://xkcd.mscha.org/ and those served by xkcd servers differs in two PNG 'tEXt' chunks with keywords 'date:create' and 'date:modify', which appears to contain the original timestamps. Images from mscha.org have wide range of these timestamps, indicating that the images weren't produced all at the same time. But the same frames downloaded from xkcd servers now have their time values set to "2013-05-01T15:11:05-04:00", so either mscha or xkcd must have modified the PNGs. The compressed image data seems to be modified, too.

Also note that the copy of the first frame found at mscha.org has been edited by Photoshop, because the PNG structure is different from all the others and contains a color profile beginning with "Photoshop ICC profile".

Since May 3, 2013 all original files have this modification timestamp at EDT (UTC -4:00): "2013-05-01 11:22:58.000000000". So it's a fake by Randall.--Dgbrt (talk) 16:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Terrain Map

I marked up a bathymetric map of the north-west Mediterranean with the data from the Beanie map, plus extrapolated data about locations and paths: File:TimeTerrainMap.png

The good news is, Megball can save about a third of the distance by their direct path through the hills. The bad news is, it's about a 50 mile journey from the likely location of the "tents" to the first part of the ridge they need to take to safety. Tavella (talk) 05:00, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Great work! Are the white spaces just regions lacking bathymetric data? My speculation is that the "40" will already be on the move. The original "sand" castle (as much salt as sand? It certainly was a sculptable medium anyway) was implied to be underwater in the three frames with the rocking bucket on the waves. Beret Girl was down there just as C+M were leaving, dragging something. They will not have been caught totally by surprise. Perhaps the C+M's upper "castle" construction will end up being a raft? Or perhaps they have packed up their tents and are already heading for high ground? They might have seen the Hill People leaving, or...who knows. We still have to "wait for it" even as C+M "run." (That cat sure is scared of running Megan! It took off like a...scared cat! You could say, "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.") Taibhse (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Yup, the white spots where spots this survey hadn't finished yet, though there's been other bathymetric work so we know they are mostly flat. Tavella (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Current research suggests neither years, nor days, but months for the basin to fill from the Atlantic the last time, in the 5.6mya event; but this one can be whatever Randall wants it to be. Taibhse (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Cueball is concerned that the water is fresh. Although this may seem to disprove the theory that the Atlantic is flooding into the Mediterranean, it actually doesn't. Notice that Cueball "felt" that something was strange. What was strange was that they were accustomed to an extremely salty sea. Can you imagine filling up the Mediterranean Sea with ocean water then cutting it off from the Atlantic and allowing it to evaporate down to the size of C&M's sea? It would be extremely salty and you could float easily in it. The water from the Atlantic Ocean is nowhere near that salty so Cueball interprets it as fresh water. This will cause problems with the rescue because these people are not used to swimming in water that's not super salty. They can't float like they're used to and risk drowning. 198.103.184.76 16:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)dbuck

My thought too. He does say "Not as fresh as a river", which means it's still salty, but much less so than the sea they're used to. I'm reminded of the Dead Sea, which also has a very high salinity. This makes the water tasting and spluttering in the beginning (while building the sand castle) make a lot of sense. I guess I have to go back and read it all again now that we have some context. ~Therrufying 83.233.5.126 18:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"Not as fresh as a river"--we also now know why Megan and Cueball couldn't get Cueball's water bottle when it fell in the river at 920:00. They never learned to swim without the high salinity helping them float.Vicky715 (talk) 23:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, I have a feeling that since you made your edit (without signing it) after Beret Girl reappeared you actually mean "the same beret girl". 121.72.165.205 10:27, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

in the frames she shows up with the upper platform, what are the small moving parts in the lower area? allready floating stuff? 212.202.64.10 10:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, she did say "I turned it into a boat." I guess that means floating stuff. Taibhse (talk) 12:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Beret Girl said "boat" and I congratulate her resourcefulness but, I wonder if she meant "raft" instead. (Let us not dwell heavily on the difference.) Is there any doubt now that Randall has been planning this for a long time, in fair detail? He seemed to have responded, to some degree, to some of the postings made here on the Wiki, yet I wonder if perhaps it was just coincidence? Riprap (talk) 14:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

So to theft (the maps) do we now add looting? What they are taking was left behind by others who evacuated in the face of a natural disaster. Our tribe seems not to have needed these things before, back in the sand castle days, but are taking advantage of this opportunity to load up on stuff now. I hope they don't sink the raft under their loot. deepfatfriar 75.109.36.232 17:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

That might be the tribes own camp. They may have moved the camp up into the hills to pick up the stuff that was left behind. Also, if there us no reasonable chance of the former owner getting it back I think the proper term is "salvaging" or "scavenging" not "looting". 216.239.45.91 19:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I was under the impression that it was the tribes' own camp. We already knew they were tent-dwellers- Yurt dwellers by the looks! 24.218.148.222 02:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

This has to be one of the best dialogues Randall has ever written: "Why is everything flooding? Why is the water full of trees? Why do you have little tables covered in sand?" Taibhse (talk) 21:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Frame 3060 "Is there any way to keep us pointing forward?" "We could start calling this the front." Clearly, someone is a mathematician. JimmyK4542 (talk) 21:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes. They lived in yurts in their village by the sea. They took some down to use in enhancing their platform-boat-raft, and apparently brought along many of the spare parts. These people seem to be very quick and very clever at improvising, even on the water. And very logical thinkers in an emergency. Taibhse (talk) 08:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what is going on. The "boat" looks like it's moving over land in 3079/3080, not floating on water. --68.147.179.172 06:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that is not land, but debris floating on the water. Sumitimus (talk) 07:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes. In 3076 a big swell caused the whole group to stagger and fall down. In 3079 and 3080 more waves, and smaller ones in 3081 and 3082. Both rafts have been on the water since they first spotted the remaining party with the second raft. Now there are flying fish! (in 3082.) The thing that may save them is that their construction methods seem to make use of lots of flexible members and perhaps lashings for fasteners; their rafts can apparently flex with the waves. So long as they don't get overwhelmed. Taibhse (talk) 08:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You would think there would be considerable air movement. I wonder if they will figure out the concept of a sea anchor, or if it would even help. Taibhse (talk) 08:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

And we're back to building sandcastles on top of the raft with the left-over sand there. I guess the story is going to move slowly for a while again. We'll have to "Wait for it" even though the hover-over text has gone back to "RUN." 198.103.184.76 12:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)dbuck

I think that is not land, but debris floating on the water. Sumitimus (talk) 07:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I feel like Randall is playing a little too fast and loose with the science here. I mean, this MASSIVE influx of water never overwhelms their makeshift rafts, carries them all the way to land, deposits them gentle on the shore, and then suddenly stops rising, without even pulling back? Did he decide he needed to speed things along, as the comic was becoming too time consuming? KenBrown (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

At the pictures you can see many big bags filled with air attached to the raft. This does work fine. And because they did not steering their vessel they just reach land again by random.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The End

Nevertheless, a wonderful ride. A tour de force. Randall is a genius at minimalism. Stick figures with no faces, all individuals, with full expression and body language; and his fans practically crash the internet. :) Taibhse (talk) 13:52, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's it? I mean it's a nice story, but not much of a climax/denouement. 66.66.107.178 20:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You could see the writing on the wall with how he sped through the rescue, but that's seriously anticlimactic. I mean, it couldn't go on forever, but it feels like he just ran out of Time. KenBrown (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, I sure couldn't see the writing on the wall when he started to rush the story - I mean, he depicted the climb from the point where they meet the tribe (which is shortly before the dunes) to the castle in about 1500 frames - more than a month worth of story, I think - while the descent was depicted in just about 100 frames. So, when he started to rush things, my reaction was thinking that something big was about to happen; and I think that's why I (and others here) are disappointed at how it ended. I suppose Randall started to get tired and just wanted to be done with it, but maybe he could've wrapped it up a bit better. He made an awesome job on the whole, yeah, but I do get that "Lost" feeling - anticlimatic, and a few things left unexplained. --Fernandofig (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure, maybe we will get a sequel. But the original image links now to [geekwagon] and the title text is "The end.". I'm waiting just for the next hour, then it should be clear, or not?--Dgbrt (talk) 20:17, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

We're all junkies now--we'll still be hitting refresh a week from now, hoping it might just change... In the end, though, that was the real brilliance of it. Not the story, but the way making us wait for each frame gave every little moment of it so much more weight, by giving us the time to anticipate and speculate and imagine for ourselves. It had to end eventually, but it was an amazing thing. KenBrown (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

So, is it time to pin down the skydate more accurately? Taibhse (talk) 20:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

We have one date that matches, so someone with patience could do the math for when Venus's cycle of reappearing in the same spot and Jupiter's almost-12 year cycle of doing the same match up again, and then test the star movements to see which is closest. Tavella (talk) 23:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Be patient, this is NOT the END, maybe just a fading out, but images still do get updates.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Writing a program to make the raft and water wiggle around forever (maybe even with tides?) would not be *that* hard. 216.239.45.91 21:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The final frame is a link to geekwagon now, so it may really be over. I've enjoyed my time watching and waiting and lurking through the discussion. Thank you, Randall, and thank you all for the wonderful discussion. Lizzard (talk) 03:57, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

If Randall is reading: Thanks for the story. We all loved it. 206.191.28.43 21:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)dbuck

I very much enjoyed following the story, but am also very much disappointed in how it ended. --68.147.179.172 01:16, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Randall for the nice story! The End remembers me of Lucasarts-Adventures... May someday a new frame appears with "That's really the end, you can shutdown your computer now" ;-) Joggl (talk) 11:47, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't believed it anyway. I recommend checking the comics until the xkcd.com address is resolvable. Is the updating script prepared for eventual IPv4 deprecation? -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

We still get updates every hour, even when most pictures are not new. The latest NEW picture was on 02:00, 27 July 2013 (EDT), ten hours after the "end frame".--Dgbrt (talk) 14:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's time to change the text on the main page to reflect the fact that the comic has actually ended. Djbrasier (talk) 00:13, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

The Bit After the Credits

I thought that we might get one, and indeed something is coming into view under the bush on the right. I am expecting the hedgehog, possibly pursued by the wildcat, whose choices on who to eat continue to be painful. There are really the only two extraneous elements that haven't been wrapped up. Tavella (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

What about the chirps from way up high when they were up on the mountain? Or the baby bird and it's mother?
Or the other tribes from the hills? 98.144.105.195 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

What about giving back the maps. And what did Cueball mean? "M: Along with the maps, I should've stolen a guide to treating injuries. Ooh, and one on how they make those pointing devices in the towers..." C responds: "Um..." Did he take something? What was it? Hmm... Taibhse (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I thought the "Um..." was like, "Um, maybe we shouldn't be quite so eager to steal stuff". 50.139.68.248 13:26, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

So it has ended, Thank you Mr. Munroe. By my estimation 3099 frames is about 1/5th of what Watterson did in 10 years. WOW.
So now it's time to go outside and build some sandcastles of our own. Hey we can be re-enactors!! 184.155.116.49 Polecat

I wish there WERE credits. I would love to get Randall's view on what his original idea was, whether he fashioned the whole story from the beginning or if it started simple and evolved into this post-apocalyptic drama, what his inspirations were, what real-wold sources he used to develop the science, a language translation, etc. I loved the whole series and checked daily (mostly) and don't think the ending in any way diminished the richness of the whole. As usually happens with XKCD, it spawned some wonderful discussions, speculations and scientific explorations. We don't usually get much explanation and I don't anticipate much from this one, either, but it doesn't make me long for it (or am I missing something). Thank you for the wonderful four month exercise in patience. Every time XKCD does something amazing that I think cannot be topped, Randall always comes up with something that amazes me. What's next? I guess I have to, "Wait for it."--Gerry (talk) 16:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Randall posted about it with a few insights into the process, and some "special thanks" stuff. Looks like it's done for real.--Fernandofig (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

It's sad having to go back to getting new XKCD comics on MWF. I really enjoyed getting to read new stuff everyday. Puck0687 (talk) 13:55, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Second night

I've been logging on 1 minutes intervals and got only the normal hourly change around there. 99.72.154.66 16:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess what geekwagon.net caught was just a minor glitch then. Jahvascriptmaniac (talk) 18:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Internal XKCD Referencing

Can's spot a "Referenced in"-like section in the existing Main or Talk listings, and I don't even know if anyone's going to read this addition to the Talk and take it seriously, but the final picture of http://what-if.xkcd.com/83/ (an image of someone building a sandcastle in a "solar sandpit") has the title-text "Just to be clear, this image does not update every hour..." And I'm sure that's not the first one I've seen (but right now it escapes me what the others were). FYI, however, for anyone who comes along to search for this kind of info. 141.101.99.177 04:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

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